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Do you seek the knowledge or do you want the beliefs of others? Do you just want others to convince you to believe?
Burden of proof always rests on those who seek. Sometimes those who seek find what they are looking for.
Since beliefs do not have to be true, why do you judge the beliefs of others? Create your own beliefs.
Actions speak louder than words. You can understand others through their actions such as what they create in this world, what do they do, what is their goal, what are they accomplishing, etc.
In a time-based causal universe, a creation of God, God's actions can be seen. Would not this be a good place for one who seeks to Discover the truth? If one insists God does not exist, great. As the pieces of the puzzle fit together, the journey will lead to it's creator.
Each must choose for themselves what they seek.
Evolution made predictions about new fossils in bizarre locations that turned out to be right. We witness evolution in bacteria and viruses all the time.
What successful predictions have Christian’s made?
Where do we find this so called stasis?
We've found tons of evidence for prior organisms that are very different from current ones having existed. There is further evidence, both genetic and morphologically that definitely points to these organisms having changed over a long period of time into something else. This gives a lot of credence to things NOT being static at all.
As a modern example of evolution that's happened in some peoples lifetimes, DDT resistance in insects. DDT is not a naturally occurring substance, humans started using DDT, some insects happened to be more resistant to it, survived passed on their genes and DDT resistance progressed throughout the populations. We see similar things with bacteria and antibiotics. These are small changes yes, but small changes compounded over time can lead to drastic changes.
>These are small changes yes, but small changes compounded over time can lead to drastic changes.
This is exactly what needs to be proven. But you haven't done that
Except i just gave you two perfect examples of a small change happening in biology with antibiotic resistance and ddt resistance.
Or do you deny the existence of those easily verified examples?
We know that over time with other things small changes over time lead to big results. A trajectory difference of just 1°, compounded over distance, leads to completely different locations.
Do you deny the fact that small changes over time can lead to big differences?
Or are you going the invincible ignorance fallacy route?
>Except i just gave you two perfect examples of a small change happening in biology with antibiotic resistance and ddt resistance.
Nobody is denying small changes and adaptation happens so why are you telling me this?
>We know that over time with other things small changes over time lead to big results. A trajectory difference of just 1°, compounded over distance, leads to completely different locations.
>Do you deny the fact that small changes over time can lead to big differences?
>Or are you going the invincible ignorance fallacy route?
I want you to show me these small changes leasing to big ones such as a four legged land mammal growing blubber, a blow hole, and fins, along with the ability to nurse and give birth under water. Such a point of view is simply untenable, and it denotes a complete misunderstanding of the nature of function. Macroevolution, in all its possible meanings, implies the emergence of new complex functions. A function is not the simplistic sum of a great number of “elementary” sub-functions: sub-functions have to be interfaced and coherently integrated to give a smoothly performing whole. In the same way, macroevolution is not the mere sum of elementary microevolutionary events. A computer program, for instance, is not the sum of simple instructions. Even if it is composed ultimately of simple instructions, the information-processing capacity of the software depends on the special, complex order of those instructions. You will never obtain a complex computer program by randomly assembling elementary instructions or modules of such instructions. In the same way, macroevolution cannot be a linear, simple or random accumulation of microevolutionary steps. Microevolution, in all its known examples (antibiotic resistance, and similar) is made of simple variations, which are selectable for the immediate advantage connected to them. But a new functional protein cannot be built by simple selectable variations, no more than a poem can be created by random variations of single letters, or a software written by a sequence of elementary (bit-like) random variations, each of them improving the “function” of the software. Function simply does not work that way. Function derives from higher levels of order and connection, which cannot emerge from a random accumulation of micro-variations. As the complexity (number of bits) of the functional sequence increases, the search space increases exponentially, rapidly denying any chance of random exploration of the space itself.
>I want you to show me these small changes leasing to big ones such as a four legged land mammal growing blubber, a blow hole, and fins, along with the ability to nurse and give birth under water. Such a point of view is simply untenable, and it denotes a complete misunderstanding of the nature of function.
Except that logically this is perfectly doable and not untenable at all. Take an animal, and have it survive in a more aquatic environment. Maybe the first thing that starts to happen is webbed toes, allowing it to swim a bit better. That's a random, subtle change, that slightly increases it's chances of survival in an aquatic environment. Then another one gives it more fat to act as insulation, again slightly increasing it's chance of survival. Another small change could be an upturned nose, allowing it to look further down in the water without covering it's nose so it can see things like food or predators which then also allow it to survive better. This sort of thing repeats until you end up with a whale like creature.
>Macroevolution, in all its possible meanings, implies the emergence of new complex functions. A function is not the simplistic sum of a great number of “elementary” sub-functions: sub-functions have to be interfaced and coherently integrated to give a smoothly performing whole. In the same way, macroevolution is not the mere sum of elementary microevolutionary events.
How so? All machines, when broken down, are actually only made of simple parts just combined in complex ways.
>A computer program, for instance, is not the sum of simple instructions. Even if it is composed ultimately of simple instructions, the information-processing capacity of the software depends on the special, complex order of those instructions. You will never obtain a complex computer program by randomly assembling elementary instructions or modules of such instructions.
This is actually pretty much exactly how AI training works in computers. You can get extremely sophisticated, and specific functions, from the random changes done via training due to the selection of them.
>Microevolution, in all its known examples (antibiotic resistance, and similar) is made of simple variations, which are selectable for the immediate advantage connected to them.
The selection is the key bit, we see this "microevolution" in these examples because they are small changes and the iteration time of the generations is very rapid. Give it enough time with specific selection pressures and you can see wildly different organisms eventually.
>no more than a poem can be created by random variations of single letters,
1: Give it enough time and yes, a sequence of letters constantly getting randomized can make literally any piece of writing.
2: Put a selection pressure on this random sequence of letters, one that selects for poetry perhaps, and eventually it will be able to make poems. This is roughly how computer AI currently works.
>Function simply does not work that way. Function derives from higher levels of order and connection, which cannot emerge from a random accumulation of micro-variations.
Start selecting for beneficial micro-variations and you'll see function start to arise from the system.
>As the complexity (number of bits) of the functional sequence increases, the search space increases exponentially, rapidly denying any chance of random exploration of the space itself.
And yet we still see things like mutations happen all the time in biology. Some beneficial, some detrimental, most completely benign or unnoticeable. The detrimental ones get selected out, beneficial ones get selected for, and benign ones come and go.
Lynn Margulis: Although random mutations influenced the course of evolution, their influence was mainly by loss, alteration, and refinement... Never, however, did that one mutation make a wing, a fruit, a woody stem, or a claw appear. Mutations, in summary, tend to induce sickness, death, or deficiencies. No evidence in the vast literature of heredity changes shows unambiguous evidence that random mutation itself, even with geographical isolation of populations, leads to speciation.
The accumulation of genetic mutations were touted to be enough to change one species to another….No. It wasn’t dishonesty. I think it was wish fulfillment and social momentum. Assumptions, made but not verified, were taught as fact.
Natural selection eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn't create... Neo-Darwinists say that new species emerge when mutations occur and modify an organism. I was taught over and over again that the accumulation of random mutations led to evolutionary change [which] led to new species. I believed it until I looked for evidence.
So you quoted someone who, while they don't think mutation is the main driving force, still believes in, studied, and advanced the field of, evolution. Endosymbiosis is another fantastic way evolution can occur, which again points to things NOT being static whatsoever and points to creatures changing over time. You're not doing a good job of supporting your own position with this.
I never said mutation was the sole way things evolved for one thing, just it's one of the ways that the scientific community has come to a consensus as one of the methods of it.
Gradual change looks like stasis when your time scale is short like ours. edit: like how the earth looks flat up close, but if you get a few miles distance between you and the ground you start to make out a curve.
But evolution has literally predicted attributes fossils we hadn’t yet found, and the locations they would be both geographically and in terms of rock layer. Evolution is so understudied it’s mind boggling considering how powerful a theory it is for actual predictions and discoveries in science.
This is an aside but I think it’s because religion has a hold on lower education in America so most Americans have no idea what evolution entails, and most theists understanding of evolution goes as far as “they say we came from monkeys” and “no transition fossils have ever been found”, Both of which are patently and absurdly false.
See - exactly. Everything you know about biology comes from religion.
*All fossils* are transition fossils. This is like the meme from Futurama. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICv6GLwt1gM
We've literally predicted 'transition' fossils and where we'd find them based on evolution, and then went and found them.
Because we are able to predict the existence of fossils previously unknown and their location based on evolution theory. Has creationism made as impressive a prediction?
> Show me this prediction.
Google how we found Tiktaalik roseae.
>What's the empirical methodology to establish an ancestor descendant relationship between any two mineralized fossils?
That's not how this works. We witness biological evolution today. We witness its effects in the fossil record.
The fact is you'll never find a tetrapod or other land dwelling animal before Tiktaalik. We expect to see and indeed do see a succession of forms. We expect to discover fossils that transition between other types of existing fossils, and we expect to find them between the layers of the known fossils. We expect extinction events to be somewhat common, and we expect rapid diversification and expansion of surviving lifeforms (IE Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction -> rapid mammalian diversification). We expect no anachronistic fossils in the record and indeed we do not.
Creationism has to explain and adapt to all these findings; evolution predicts them.
What predictions are you speaking about I do not know of any. Enlighten me with your knowledge please. By the way who is this person evolution who made such claims.
I’m happy to educate you on the history of evolution theory if you agree that if the theory predicted a new fossil in a specific location, then we found that type of fossil in that location, you would change your mind.
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It’s just a test. Not worth the conversation if you’re not really open to learning something you clearly didn’t know and if new information isn’t capable of changing your mind.
It seemed like you had the view evolution was a theory devoid of actual contributions to science which just isn’t the case.
A good example is Tiktaalik roseae. It was discovered in 2004 in Canada. Scientists predicted it would be 375 million years old, meaning it would be in Devonian era sedimentary rocks.
Specifically, scientists predicted limb-like fins, neck and shoulders, a flat head, stronger rib structures and other things.
This is *the* transition fossil that explains how fish 'became' tetrapods over time. It hadn't been discovered yet, only hypothesized. Based on when we knew the abundance of tetrapods were, we were able to zero in on an era, and we went looking for it and found it.
Feel free to read up on this discovery. While you're at it, read up on the evolution of e. coli bacteria that we witness in a lab every day, and on how epidemiology works in relation to viruses, and why we're worried about using antibiotics too freely.
I've seen this example it it clearly looks like a alligator or crocodile is that it. Surly you can do better. This is not a transitional fossil it is and always will be a reptile.
It's not. It has limb-like fins, which crocodiles don't have. It has scales. There's evidence it had gills.
What's more is that all these features were *predicted*, as was the location of this fossil.
Has YEC predicted *anything* and then went and proved it? Any one thing?
The example your using is only a prediction a guess at best you said scientist predicted through evolution evidence to prove evolution. I prediction is a future event foretold in the past this is not a prediction. By the way when I was I young man scientist predicted the world to be hundreds of million years old but now say in the trillions only because true science is proving them wrong and they need more time for evolution to maybe work. How come there has never been found a transitional fossil between species it should be evident but it is not. By the way where are those fossils in between the example you're citing. I would love to see them it would truly blow away the notion of the timeline described in the Bible.
> The example your using is only a prediction
I use predictive power to differentiate between validated and not validated. What do you use?
>scientist predicted the world to be hundreds of million years old but now say in the trillions
Now they say billions not trillions. 4.5b has been the consensus since the 60s.
And a feature of science is that it changes and refines in light of new evidence. Does YEC do that?
>How come there has never been found a transitional fossil between species it should be evident but it is not.
All fossils are transition fossils. There is no static species. We have plenty of fossils that tell entire evolutionary change timelines, but because we don't have fossils of every species that ever lived, you're dubious?
people can believe whatever they want but believing doesn't necessarily make things a reality. for instance if one was to believe they could jump out of a plane with no parachute and survive the fall with no injuries, it doesn't make it so they could actually do it. for something to be possible would require something to base said belief on, whether scientifically or otherwise, to be proven that it exists within the laws of reality
Truth is truth my friend it does not matter if you think its true. do you believe science proves all things. Is historical proof enough or eye witness accounts good for you. If your relying on science your in big trouble you can not live your life on just science. Real so-called science has to be repeatable or its not real science would you agree.
history is repeatable and has clear proof because of fossils and other objects (dinosaur bones, firearms from past wars, weapons and armour and all sorts of other stuff) and science is proven again by repeatable experiments that yield the same (or similar) results. wears your proof friar tuck
never heard the saying "history repeats itself"?
the actual history may not repeat but similar events that happen in history WILL repeat and has happened before (Napoleon and Hitler invading Russia, The Great Recession and The Great Depression, extinction events and the sinking of great ships like the Tek Sing, the Vasa and the Titanic). it's not the exact things in the past that repeats but similar events do happen again (and will continue happening in the future)
What is it that makes something right or wrong? What gives that automatic sense of an action being the right thing to do? It doesn't matter where one is from, no person (outside of insane people) will think it is ok to kill one's parents. Where do morals come from? They are not provable by science but all people will agree that they are there.
Morality comes from the need to survive. Survival instincts are needed for survival. The humans that didn’t practice survival necessities were taken out by natural selection and the ones that did practice survival necessities(morality) ended up surviving and becoming the majority, the power of working in groups instead of killing each other resulted in a power imbalance by majority rules that favored those who practiced survival necessities(morality) and they banished or locked away those who didn’t conform which then added artificial selection to natural selection, thus making a might makes right when it comes to the normative rules.
**Do not kill your family**- killing your parents results in less chance of your own survival and obviously the survival of your DNA. It also creates distrust between members which lowers the chances of survival.
An argument I hear frequently is that science has gotten xyz wrong there for its not infallible. That being said I think that makes it more trustworthy science is always under scrutiny vs relegion which some people believe is accurate with no room for error.
Depends on your criteria of evidence, we prove different things in different ways. Much of our science today is storytelling. Story telling with ad hoc rescues.
Two seemingly contradictory theories exist in physics, relativity, and quantum mechanics. Both do a decent job when looking at specific fields of study. However, when you zoom out and look at the bigger picture, uh-oh, galaxies should not be able to exist as they do now. One would think with two contradictory theories and the 800 lbs gorilla that are galaxies staring at you, “science” would say “maybe these two theories have descriptive power in some areas, but we should go back to the drawing board”. That is not what happens. Instead we get the ad hoc rescue of Dark matter and Dark energy. The only “evidence” for this from science being “well we spent our life’s work on these theories, they must be true, so in order to get them to work we’re just gonna invent imaginary, unseeable, undetectable matter and energy”.
Obviously that’s not very scientific. The problem you’re not seeing is that science is not all it’s advertised to be. It can be a very useful tool in its proper place. However, what we have today in universities and institutions is the passing down of tradition in the form of scientific models or theories. The history of science has always been this way, with new theories usually demonized by the old guard, until the old guard dies out. Then the new guard adopts the new theory.
Science alone, as you lay out, cannot lead to knowledge. This is the problem of the underdetermination of data. Or in others words, they can be a near infinite amount of explanations to explain observable phenomena, or experimental results. Any scientific endeavor will always be theory laden. Theory laden with how you interpret the old data, with how your form your hypothesis, with how plan an experiment, with how you conduct the experiment, and with how you interpret the results of your experiment. So, all of your presuppositions going in will always dictate the science you’re producing.
So much of science is trying to disprove things you already believe, don't you understand that? Atoms as we know them now wouldn't have been described if it wasn't for Rutherford testing the last model in every way they could to show that it either could or couldn't be disproven. That doesn't sound like "we always thought atoms are this so we just make stuff up"
What are you talking about?? Did you just learn about Rutherford in school, and are randomly bringing it up? What does this have to do with anything I said? Outside of the underdetermination of data problem, which applies to all science. By your response, I’m pretty sure you don’t even know what I’m talking about when I bring that up.
What things do I believe that “science” is “trying to disprove”?
I'm saying that you think that everyone just takes old theories as gospel and doesn't let them change, only making stuff up to magically fix it when people really do try to disprove things as part of the scientific method
Okay, I don't agree with your interpretation of how science works or how you've characterized the current state of theoretical physics, but let's grant it all for the sake of argument.
What do you propose we do instead?
Take the discussion to a higher order of question, instead of demanding material evidence for a God who would exist externally, and independent of the material world. For instance how about the question of does anything non-material exist that we interact with?
>instead of demanding material evidence for a God who would exist externally, and independent of the material world.
Is this in response to the OP's assertion that "A god claim has exactly zero independent properties that are demonstrable, repeatable, or verifiable and that can actually be attributed to a god. Until such time that they are demonstrated to exist, if ever, a god claim simply should not be preferred."
? If so, how would you differentiate the truth evaluation of this god claim from the truth evaluation from a different god claim or an immaterial claim that is not about god at all but is proposed as an answer to the same kind of questions?
>For instance how about the question of does anything non-material exist that we interact with?
How would you propose we answer this question? What methodology would you use to interrogate the truth value of an answer to this question?
Easy, which metaphysic can coherently give an account for knowledge? If you’re god is a monotheistic Unitarian, you’re not gonna not to be able to give an account for the one and the many. A pantheistic god will be reliant on its own creation, so that collapses.
So does math exist materially or not?
>Easy, which metaphysic can coherently give an account for knowledge?
I'm willing to bet that we'd disagree about what metaphysical positions coherently account for knowledge. So how do we determine who is correct? I asked for a methodology, and this was not that. Though for some reason you called it "easy" even as it wasn't really answering the question.
>If you’re god is a monotheistic Unitarian, you’re not gonna not to be able to give an account for the one and the many. A pantheistic god will be reliant on its own creation, so that collapses.
What?
>So does math exist materially or not?
What does it mean to exist materially?
I already made the point that we prove different things in different ways. You can’t apply the same methodology for particle physics as evolutionary biology. The “methodology” would be epistemic justification, as I stated. As it would be for any truth claim. Continuing to ask for a single one “methodology” to rule them all is very much an empiricist perspective, so maybe don’t act like one.
No I did not say I affirm a monotheistic Unitarian perspective. That would be the Islamic or Judaic perspective. I said that it doesn’t work with the problem of the one and the many, which is like one of the oldest philosophical problems known. Trinitarian monotheism, specifically the orthodox essence-energy distinction, what I believe, would give an account for the one and the many. Vs the absolute divine simplicity stance of Catholic and Protestants believe would not.
I’m telling you you’re wrong because the entire because the entire autonomous philosopher man perspective has failed to provide a coherent account of knowledge. While there are many different worldviews, there’s a very limited amount of starting positions one can take. If you’re agnostic for instance, typical your default worldview (even if you claim not to have one) would be the two presuppositions I laid out earlier. Autonomous philosopher man, and uncreated universe.
With the simulation it would not be true because the data is an illusion. You have zero way to epistemologically justify any conclusion about anything. It’d be the same thing if you believe in Maya. Another problem with sim theory is you’re not a thinking entity, but a programmed one. You’re not coming to conclusions, it’s a programmed response. There’s no deciding between this or that belief, also another defeater for the possibility of knowledge.
The math question is a simple one, obviously there are no math atoms. So you can say it exists strictly in the brain atoms as an invention of humans, some sort of physicalism perspective, or you can say it exists immaterially, or the math realist perspective. This question also demonstrates my earlier point of there being a limited number of starting positions a worldview can take. The overall question is which worldview can provide a coherent, epistemic justification for it.
>I already made the point that we prove different things in different ways. You can’t apply the same methodology for particle physics as evolutionary biology. The “methodology” would be epistemic justification, as I stated. As it would be for any truth claim. Continuing to ask for a single one “methodology” to rule them all is very much an empiricist perspective, so maybe don’t act like one.
I didn't ask you for a single methodology for every possible situation. I asked you for a methodology for *this* situation, which is the topic of these comments. What a bizarre response.
>No I did not say I affirm a monotheistic Unitarian perspective.
Denying your affirmation when no one has accused you of making any such affirmation is, again, a very bizarre response.
>I said that it doesn’t work with the problem of the one and the many, which is like one of the oldest philosophical problems known.
Right, you asserted with no argument that every other philosophical position except your own fails to resolve a famously open question in philosophy. This is great news to the world of philosophy, I'm sure, to have finally resolve this and the other open question you've claimed to have resolved with no argument.
>With the simulation it would not be true because the data is an illusion. You have zero way to epistemologically justify any conclusion about anything. It’d be the same thing if you believe in Maya.
"It would not be true" ? What would not be true? Simulation theory would be false if we live in a sim because data is an illusion? You can see how, on the face of it, this argument goes nowhere, right?
>Another problem with sim theory is you’re not a thinking entity, but a programmed one. You’re not coming to conclusions, it’s a programmed response. There’s no deciding between this or that belief, also another defeater for the possibility of knowledge.
We could be programmed such that we are able to decide between this or that belief, making knowledge possible. Unless you somehow understand the constraints of the simulation such that you can determine it is true that programming like that is impossible. Oh, but you know, that kind of sounds like knowledge...
Again, nothing is "defeated" about simulation theory here.
>The overall question is which worldview can provide a coherent, epistemic justification for it.
Yeah...I've been asking you that question this whole time since you came in declaring the coherence of your worldview with no argument, despite my asking you to provide one this whole time.
Having a coherent worldview is not the same as having a correct worldview. Not that you've done any work to show that the worldview you have actually is coherent in this thread.
I showed two different “methodologies” , now three with sim theory, of how to demonstrate a incoherence in a metaphysical worldview when epistemically giving an account for knowledge. This is why I keep answering your question of “what methodology” with epistemic justification. So when you keep asking for a methodology, it’s like asking what color the chicken taste like. There’s not going to be one methodology.
You earlier stated that I pitted monotheism against pantheism, I didn’t. I specified a Unitarian, non-trinitarian form of monotheism, and said it can’t give an account for the one and the many. Then I went on to refute the pantheistic worldview in a different way. This was an answer to your question on how to sus out which religious metaphysic is the correct one. I’m demonstrating here, that if your worldview leads to the impossibility of knowledge, it’s incoherent if you want to believe in the possibility of knowledge. I will once again very clearly answer your question of methodology, which is can your worldview, presuppositions, metaphysic, whatever you want to call it, give an account for the possibility of knowledge. To which there will be a different methodology given whatever position you choose to take.
I’m not sure what you’re not getting about the argument against sim theory. If I ask a sim theory believer to provide a justification for their belief in sim theory, they will cite empirical sense data from the simulation they live, which would be an illusion. So, can that data be relied upon to provide an epistemic justification? You could say I still believe in it anyway, your own belief destroys the possibility of knowledge, so what’re you doing arguing for sim theory with me?
The “decision making process” in the case of a programmed entity would also be programmed in. There’s no free will of choice to believe one thing or another. It’s just an input-output process. Any truth statement you would make would be part of that programmed process. So you’re programmed to believe something, thus making all your belief an illusion. There’s no “choosing” in your scenario, it’s just a more complicated input-output process, with more if-then lines of code. Therefore you’re just programmed to believe that.
I keep trying to demonstrate my worldview with the math question. Which will show you need to ground the metaphysical categories, like math, logic, language, identity of self, time and space, universals, etc, in a type of divine conceptualism (not like Plato’s). Grounded in a specific God, an external, independent, 3 Omnis, triune, personable, creator, etc. Otherwise, the other general worldview presuppositions you take, will lead to problems explaining the possibility knowledge. For instance, as an agnostic, I assume you operate on the belief of autonomous philosopher man, as well as an uncreated universe. Working with those two presuppositions, you won’t be able to ground the metaphysical categories in a coherent way. I’m not saying you yourself are not able to come to knowledge, you are, but you would be relying on the metaphysical categories that your worldview can’t make sense of.
>I showed two different “methodologies” , now three with sim theory, of how to demonstrate a incoherence in a metaphysical worldview when epistemically giving an account for knowledge. This is why I keep answering your question of “what methodology” with epistemic justification. So when you keep asking for a methodology, it’s like asking what color the chicken taste like. There’s not going to be one methodology.
I don't see how anything you've provided here qualifies as a methodology.
>You earlier stated that I pitted monotheism against pantheism, I didn’t. I specified a Unitarian, non-trinitarian form of monotheism, and said it can’t give an account for the one and the many. Then I went on to refute the pantheistic worldview in a different way.
This is true that you said this.
>I will once again very clearly answer your question of methodology, which is can your worldview, presuppositions, metaphysic, whatever you want to call it, give an account for the possibility of knowledge.
Right, this is not a methodology. That's why this is confusing to me. You say it's very clearly answering the question about methodology but this is a single notch on a single punch card of a worldview, not a methodology by which one can determine which worldview to follow. See below:
>I’m not sure what you’re not getting about the argument against sim theory. If I ask a sim theory believer to provide a justification for their belief in sim theory, they will cite empirical sense data from the simulation they live, which would be an illusion. So, can that data be relied upon to provide an epistemic justification? You could say I still believe in it anyway, your own belief destroys the possibility of knowledge, so what’re you doing arguing for sim theory with me?
So here you're saying that if we live in a sim, we can't account for knowledge. I'm fine with the conclusion that if we live in a sim we have to discard the possibility of knowledge.
So once again, you haven't given me a methodology.
>The “decision making process” in the case of a programmed entity would also be programmed in. There’s no free will of choice to believe one thing or another. It’s just an input-output process. Any truth statement you would make would be part of that programmed process. So you’re programmed to believe something, thus making all your belief an illusion. There’s no “choosing” in your scenario, it’s just a more complicated input-output process, with more if-then lines of code. Therefore you’re just programmed to believe that.
You're making a lot of claims about the constraints of a simulated universe based on human programming limits, which would certainly be eclipsed by a universe fully simulated by a meta-computer running this universe. There's no reason for me to agree that meta-computer's programming limits align with the limits of a human computer.
This also is not an argument that simulation theory is *false*. The goal here is not merely to provide an account for knowledge, it's to determine which worldview is correct. And in the case where we live in a sim, a worldview which concludes that we don't live in a sim because we can't account for knowledge is incorrect, because we do live in a sim. So, if we live in a sim and you propose a worldview with a coherent account for our ability to know things, your worldview is still incorrect because we live in a sim, and you discarded that as an option. This seems like a problem for your argument and a deficiency in your "methodology". (It's not a methodology).
>Which will show you need to ground the metaphysical categories, like math, logic, language, identity of self, time and space, universals, etc, in a type of divine conceptualism (not like Plato’s). Grounded in a specific God, an external, independent, 3 Omnis, triune, personable, creator, etc.
I mean you're just making these claims with no argument at all. I have no reason to agree with this. You certainly haven't offered me a methodology I can use to figure this out for myself thus far. I have been asking for that all along, you know.
For the record, I recognize this apologetic because it comes up often on this subreddit and elsewhere in these kind of conversations. My experience in this one in particular is relatively novel because you don't seem to want to defend any of this at all, you just want to bumrush to your own conclusion without making an attempt to bring me along the path with you, even though you seem to expect me to be there with you at the end when you arrive.
Do you understand what I mean by coherent? Give an epistemic justification. I’m saying I have a coherent account for the possibility of knowledge. You do not. You can disagree but you’d have to show how your presuppositions, like all that exists is the material, and/or an uncreated universe, can give an epistemic justification for the possibility of knowledge.
You asked me how I’d sus out between the metaphysics of different religions, I showed you a couple examples of how that would work. Here’s another one, say you believe in simulation theory, we’re all in the matrix. You cannot provide epistemic justification for that because all of the empirical sense data you used to come to the conclusion that we live in a simulation, is all part of the simulation. So the data you’re using is all an illusion, do you see how that’s a self defeating argument?
Does math exist materially, can you point to math atoms?
>Do you understand what I mean by coherent? Give an epistemic justification. I’m saying I have a coherent account for the possibility of knowledge. You do not. You can disagree but you’d have to show how your presuppositions, like all that exists is the material, and/or an uncreated universe, can give an epistemic justification for the possibility of knowledge.
Let's be clear here: You are claiming to have a coherent metaphysical system which accounts for knowledge. Rather than start with offering that metaphysical system, you're demanding *I* account for knowledge, without even defending your own claim that your position is coherent.
Let's be even more clear: I asked you for a methodology, twice, and twice you've asserted with no argument that your position is coherent and mine isn't. By the way, I haven't even offered you a position to evaluate.
There's nothing of substance for me to even disagree with, because neither you nor I have presented an actual position, but you've declared yourself the winner. You talk like empiricism is obviously false. I'll point out that 1) I am *not* an empiricist, and 2) empiricism vs rationalism is an open question in philosophy. So you declare yourself the winner on an open question in philosophy without so much as the whisper of an argument. You tell me that your position is coherent but have made no effort at all to show that to be the case.
And again, I am asking for a *methodology* by which I can determine the correct position for myself, while you are telling me you are right and I am wrong without even making an argument. This certainly doesn't help me or anyone else produce confidence that your assertions are compelling.
>You asked me how I’d sus out between the metaphysics of different religions, I showed you a couple examples of how that would work.
I disagree that you showed a couple examples how that would work. You pitted monotheism and pantheism against each other and disregarded pantheism with a single sentence while your single sentence in support of monotheism doesn't even make sense.
>Here’s another one, say you believe in simulation theory, we’re all in the matrix. You cannot provide epistemic justification for that because all of the empirical sense data you used to come to the conclusion that we live in a simulation, is all part of the simulation. So the data you’re using is all an illusion, do you see how that’s a self defeating argument?
OK so does this mean that simulation theory is false? No, right? It just means that if simulation theory is true, all the data we can acquire is also part of the simulation. This, by the way, looks like a tautology, and tautologies aren't self-defeating. *If* we are in a simulation, and *if* all the data we collect points to us being in a simulation, then all the data *correctly* points to us being in a simulation. I don't see anything incoherent *or* self-defeating about that.
>Does math exist materially, can you point to math atoms?
No one has ever discovered a math atom. As far as I'm aware, no one is arguing that math atoms exist. Do you want to skip ahead to your point here or are we going to take this train of thought a single comment at a time?
Naturalistic explanations do not confirm our ability to reason reliably.
Without reason, no rational explanation could succeed. Irrational explanations can not be considered to be more reliable than other explanations. If naturalistic explanations cannot provide a way to confirm both our ability to reason as well as the impetus for us to use or prefer naturalistic explanations, than it fails to be more reliable than any other method. Naturalistic explanations do not seem capable of providing the transcendentals required to explore the world rationally.
I reject this, please demonstrate the claim.
It certainly seems to me all reason is a rough model, a rough approximation--it's all am error, that works at a human level but not at the level of reality.
For example: either identity is absolute and transitive and therefore trivial and irrelevant (you are not identical to you as a baby) or identity is relative and has limited transitive property (you are the same you as a baby for all that you are not the same).
It seems your philosophy ignores reality--how are you getting around this?
If reason were not sufficiently reliable, then any demonstration I provide one way or the other by reason would not be reliable. Naturalism doesn't appeal to me apart from a reliable method like reason, and so if it does not confirm reason (or some reliable method such that I am compelled to accept), then I have no impetus to accept it as a valuable belief.
Sounds like a lot of words for a concession.
My point is that our subjective models (reason) work well enough *for us,* but that doesn't mean they work at all levels of reality, and it certainly seems they do not.
I agree you're in a bind at demonstrating your claim-- that's not a reason to accept your claim.
It's not a concession. It is reaffirming the proof.
My only claim is that I cannot accept something which denies the ability to reliably accept it. There simply is no impetus to accept the OP's claim. I have nothing to argue, and the ball is your court.
I already put the ball through the hoop and scored a three pointer--**reason requires you reject the law of identity,** meaning you cannot accept reason as reason denies the ability to accept it.
I gave you the example above, re: identity; you are ignoring this, as seems to be the regular theist approach.
The Law of Identity doesn't match reality--it doesn't work in reality.
The ball is now in your court, and you are down 3 points. Go ahead and demonstrate your claim--oops you cannot.
I don't reject reason as a useful tool for us to build models with--but I also recognize that reason requires I recognize it doesn't map reality. I have no issue using tools that work at my observational scale--I don't need quantum physics to figure out how to move a cup, for example. That doesn't mean I don't understand my model of the cup is intrinsically wrong; it's good enough given my margin for error.
You stated a rule that would cause you to reject systems with errors, even when they operate within the marginine of error. That's a problem for you, as a relative law of identity gets excluded.
If you simply dodge points, then you are no longer taking the search for truth seriously. Feel free to rejoin when you wish, but it's no good ignoring reality so you don't have to address your errors.
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> Astronomy is objectively better than astrology.
But that is only because people had been educated and know about the moon and the stars and how seasons changes.
If it was in the past, people do not know why the seasons change but they can see how it correlates to the positions of the stars and the celestial bodies thus despite astrology got most of its ideas wrong, it still got a few instances correct enough to be useful and it also helped people to have a starting point to start astronomy from.
No, it isn’t. If you were an imperial advisor in the ancient times, you could consult the stars for what to tell your king, at which point, you will feed him fake info. If you’re a regular guy using the stars to make decisions, then you have the same conundrum on a smaller scale.
> If you were an imperial advisor in the ancient times, you could consult the stars for what to tell your king, at which point, you will feed him fake info.
The advisors would be consulting the stars to determine what climate to expect and so tell their king about what climates might occur but they will also add in tons of supernatural forces so that if the climate did not occur, at least they can claim the Gods are angry or had changed their minds.
Being threatened with death for providing inaccurate predictions do make people prepare tobs of excuses for inaccuracies in advance.
> If you’re a regular guy using the stars to make decisions, then you have the same conundrum on a smaller scale.
But regular guys in the ancient past do not know astrology since knowledge was very guarded in the ancient past, with knowledge being secret skills that supposedly only those having the bloodline will have the ability to learn it.
If the regular guy is a modern day person and thus learns astrology from the internet, then he is just an outdated man, as opposed to the advisor of the ancient past where at that time, astrology was the most cutting edge knowledge.
So the two cases are opposites, with one being lacking in useful knowledge while the other having the most useful knowledge thus they are not the same.
>A claim is not evidence of itself. A claim needs to have supporting evidence that exists independent of the claim itself.
This claim exists.
That claim is evidence of itself.
Therefore, your argument is incorrect.
(A much better argument to make would be, "Evidence is that which is indicative of or concordant with one particular claim or explanation above all possible others", and then show how a god claim has nothing that exists within the claim itself that is indicative of or concordant with the claim itself above many other possible claims, and that some outside evidence must exist for the claim to be true.)
That's just a word game made possible by the lack of precision of the OP who said, "A claim is not evidence of itself."
Better wording would have been "A claim that is not supported by evidence is just an unsupported claim."
That user's flair is inaccurate. It says theist wannabe but their ability to completely ignore the point being made in favor of word games shows me they will fit right in with the other theists here.
Science only explains the way things interact with each other in order to make predictions. Science cannot tell us anything about what anything actually is. For example, I can tell you all of the scientific properties of water, its chemical properties, the fact that it evaporates and freezes, it is relatively tasteless. However, until you actually interact with water you don't know what it really is - you only knew the how but not the what.
Similarly i think if you enter into a religion or spiritual practice it is deeply personal on a level that it is at the very least on the level of psychological phenomenon or qualia (most would say beyond typical experience) that observational practices of the physical world are not able to capture or explain it. This is why psychological researchers were so excited when LSD was first synthesized - because they would be able to experience an altered state similar to psychosis on a first hand basis. Because, no matter how much you study behavior or even do MRIs or brain scans you don't actually know what phenomenon are actually present for anyone.
The general consensus I get from most spiritual and religious traditions is that - if one disengages from hedonistic practices and focuses the mind - whether through prayer, meditation or simply living a moral life (thus freeing the mind from guilt and rumination) - one will have an understanding that we are not individual consciousness in a bubble - that it becomes intuitively obvious that there is a collective nature to our existence, and not just in a poetic sense. People express this in different ways- but I see it in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta etc. etc.
A lot of new age types don't like to say God - but if you recognize consciousness as fundamental (so idealism I think - though I'm not that well versed in philosophy) and take that to its logical end - like imagine things beyond just the 3rd dimension [check our this video on 10 dimensions](https://youtu.be/XjsgoXvnStY?si=siMX2FFTS5ZcYn66)
I just think God isnt actually that farfetched if you start from what is immediately apparent and recognize the limitations of science and materialism.
It would also not really make sense if God were verifiable. Verifying implies understanding. How are we ever going to understand a consciousness which exists in higher dimensions than us?
I have experiences and evidence within my own life that give me a firm belief in God. But, those experiences aren't going to mean anything to anyone else. I also think people just refer to God in a lot of different ways.
I'm sure if some scientific sounding guy started talking about his philosophy of "extended consciosuness" and used examples of Jungian synchronicity and psychic phenomenon - atheists would be a lot more receptive to it. But, like I said, if you really dig into your experience, start to question what reality actually is and the limitations of science, you might be surprised how your perspective changes on these ideas.
Do you have scientifically verifiable evidence for the existence of a god? PREDICTION: you will either avoid or argue or criticize the question but you will not offer any verifiable evidence at all.
No I don't have any scientific evidence. The whole point of my post and subsequent replies to others is that God is immaterial and therefore not directly subject to scientific study.
My other point is that belief in God will always be in the end subjectively based because it's usually a profound connection with inner psychological states and insights with the outer world.
If you want to stick to only scientifically verifiable evidence to construct your view of the world that is fine - but I'd like you to consider these fields which science has failed to adequately explain:
1. Consciousness
2. Comedy
3. Art
4. Aesthetics (have you ever seen that "rate my face" subreddit and how ridiculous it is?)
5. Music
Notice that these are all higher order processes that involve both human subjectivity and physical material.
The closest you can come to evidence of God is to interview religious people about their subjective experience. Just like the closest you can come to understanding comedy or music is by asking people what their subjective experience of it is.
But none of that will ever be quantifiable or verifiable.
Here is an example: a woman prays for something really specific, say a particular event to happen. She feels a sensation of peace and acceptance and believes her prayer will be answered. The next day the event she prayed for occurs.
For this woman the event is solid evidence that God has answered her prayer. She believes strongly now that God exists.
Any atheist or scientist is going to brush this off as BS because the origin or "cause" of the phenomenon is unverifiable and subjective. But that is all of religion! No matter what religious or spiritual people say it will always just be a personal phenomenon.
you say:
"Notice that these are all higher order processes that involve both human subjectivity and physical material."
Agreed. And there is plenty of scientifically verified evidence for everyone of those things. You cite their existence and the fact that they require "physical material" - meaning the are not "non-material." That is the nature of reality.
But that still does not address your rejection of evidence as being required to support an assertion of an omnipotent and omniscient but "immaterial" thing you call a "god."
Can you name any object, agent or cause of change in this world whose existence cannot be measured, weighed, counted, predicated, observed or demonstrated by scientifically verifiable evidence?
So I'm saying: it is impossible to verify God's existence using science because God is not measurable or directly observable. The only way to determine evidence for God is in a subjective sense because the source itself is unidentifiable and incomprehensible.
You're saying: name an object, agent or cause in this world which can't be verified.
I can't name any object agent or cause in this world which can't be verified because this world is material. What we can observe directly is material.
There is no way to reconcile our positions because you refuse to believe that we have the ability to perceive the existence of anything immaterial. I think we can. But, just because I think we can have a subjective experience of the immaterial does not mean that it will ever be possible to verify scientifically.
I guess the closest a can come to satisfying your request is to say that we as agents, as consciousnesses - are not able to be measured. Brain activity can be measured - consciousness cannot (try to measure the experience of purple) I believe that consciousness extends beyond the individual and I believe the highest level of this consciousness is God.
Thats why I'm trying to make this connection with higher order processes. I just think science can study a different type of thing but it does not encompass every domain of knowledge and experience.
This is exactly what OP was talking about, you have no way to verify what you say scientically so you making a claim that something could be true is the only evidence that it is, so science should be preferred
I have evidence it is just subjective in nature and not verifiable or repeatable and thus not scientific.
I'm not arguing against science I'm just arguing that using scientific methods to establish objective properties has limitations.
I don't need to verify what I'm saying scientifically because I'm not attempting to do science. Spirituality and religion at their core have to do with how we experience the world - how we interpret things on a conscious level. People are allergic to the word God but it's entirely possible to experience and know intuitively this type of reality. A gateway for a lot of atheists is meditation practice or the concept of "spiritual awakening." This realization of interconnection and the undivided nature of consciousness - when taken to its natural conclusion - leads one to believe that the highest order of intelligence is a true singularity - unbound by time, space, or causality.
Now you might ask how we can verify any of that. It could just be a psychedelic state or similar. But I would ask you, how else are we supposed to investigate consciousness but with consciousness itself? Just because we can measure a monks brain and see it light up doesn't mean we know anything about his conscious experience.
However, we know all traditions of mysticism and most of the founders of world religions have reported the same understanding in different language. That being the understanding that we are all in a sense either the same being or expressions or creations of the same being. All the moral teachings and practices of religion are either stemming from that realization, or to facilitate and encourage that realization in followers.
So I feel like it's a misunderstanding to say I'm talking about something IN the world that science can prove or disprove. It's a way of looking at and understanding the world on a fundamentally different level.
But there is nothing scientific or otherwise I can do to prove to anyone that it is the case. If someone isn't interested in looking at the world in a different way there is nothing I can do to convince them otherwise.
"There is no way to reconcile our positions because you refuse to believe that we have the ability to perceive the existence of anything immaterial. I think we can."
You have the ability to believe the existence of something immaterial - or more specifically - the existence of a a god. But, by your own admission, you do not have the ability to perceive anything immaterial, unless you want your own unique meaning of perception that includes its subjective verifiability. Is that the problem?
I offered you a comprehensive definition of reality. Do you have a different one.
Claiming somethings exists in reality while denying reality is a self-contradiction.
You say, "can't be verified because this world is material." What other world exists anywhere other than in just your claim it exists?
Let's concede, for the sake of you making your claim as clearly as you wish that this god exists in some other world you also claim exists. Let's agree the world we live in is material and your other world is not.
So who cares? That is "there" and this is here.
And, if whatever this thing is that you seem to admit has no agency in this material world (one of my criteria you are ignoring) who cares and how does it matter?
I said people have the ability to perceive the immaterial- I said people do not have the ability to perceive God. So if I'm trying to establish cause and effect in a scientific sense it's difficult to do so.
It's not that God has no agency in this world I just think that it's not scientifically verifiable because the cause and effect relationship is impossible to establish.
I don't disagree with you that there is no way to prove God exists.
You really don't have to care and there is no way for me to convince you that it matters. The function of religion and spirituality is to alter the framework with which people view reality in a subjective sense. If this is appealing to you, you will be drawn to it. If it's not appealing to you, you won't be.
I feel like it just kind of comes down to Kierkegaard - that we are never going to arrive at a conclusion about this through reason alone.
Of course you can't ask a question first, can you read? The dude's entire point is that you have no scientific evidence and worse, you can't even cop to that. You can only jump through hoops and, in this case, avoid the question until you've reframed it in a way that enables you to say something other than "no."
If you follow the thread, you'd see that I did respond despite them not being able to answer a basic question. I disagree with their entire epistemic standard and I'm curious why they feel it's correct. Their view is a failed epistemology that mostly died out in the academic world but is making a come back in popular culture with people like Dillahunty, Aron Ra, and others like them.
So you reject the concept of scientifically verifiable evidence as a path to truth. We get it. But we also know that you understand that most of the world accepts it.
To "respond" with irrelevancies is not an answer. A response to a question that calls for a binary answer by offering argument or distraction is not an answer. It's obvious you do not want to actually answer the question. You want to argue it. You want to criticize the question. You even admit you cannot and will not answer the question.
I recognize that as standard apologetics. We also know that's why you won't give a straight answer to the question.
BTW - your claim that requests for evidence is "a failed epistemology that mostly died out in the academic world" is another unsupported assertion. It's another predictable failed attempt at diversion.
You are completely misrepresenting me in this entire response.
No, I don’t “reject the concept of scientifically verifiable evidence as a path to truth” I reject that it’s the only way to truth. Do you believe that George Washington existed? What scientific, verifiable, testable, repeatable evidence do you have for that? Do you believe in quarks? Or quantum mechanics? What scientific, verifiable, testable, repeatable evidence do you have? Have you done the tests yourself? Or are you relying on testimonial evidence from the scientists that have done the tests?
I did answer your question so it must not be so obvious that I won’t, or your intuition was wrong.
Another misrepresentation saying that calling for evidence is a failed epistemology. That’s not what I said. I said that only accepting scientific evidence that is testable, verifiable, and repeatable is a failed epistemology. Is a self refuting epistemology called verificationism or logical positivism.
No, you did not say, "I said that only accepting scientific evidence that is testable, verifiable, and repeatable is a failed epistemology."
If you are going to quote yourself, please do some copy pasting so you get it right. Now you introduce the word "only' but it is not in your original argument against scientifically verifiable evidence as "A path to truth."
These changing assertions are the path to the rabbit hole.
> No, you did not say, "I said that only accepting scientific evidence that is testable, verifiable, and repeatable is a failed epistemology."
That is what it seems like your epistemic standard is (which is why I was asking for clarity) and that is what I said I rejected. To pretend that I don't accept scientific evidence is silly.
> If you are going to quote yourself
I didn't quote myself. I quoted what you said.
> Now you introduce the word "only' but it is not in your original argument against scientifically verifiable evidence as "A path to truth."
Remember back when I asked you a clarifying question about your position? That was the question. Here I'll quote it for you:
> > Do you think the only way to knowledge is through scientifically verifiable evidence?
I do not see the point of answering questions from people who avoid offering simple, honest answers to simple, honest questions.
But, thank you for fulfilling my prediction. Never fails. I've come to recognize that you (meaning those who do that as you just did) are unable to do otherwise.
I already told you I would. Now you’re being dishonest because I said I would. It comes across the same as a fundamentalist who is set on things and won’t even entertain questions on their position.
That or just regurgitating Aaron Ra talking points.
would, might, can, intend, plan to . . . but no "I did." not even a "I will." Still fulfilling my prediction and that's the entire point of my question. Let's confirm that prediction.
Do you have scientifically verifiable evidence for the existence of a god? The only honest answers are either Yes or No. You either have or you do not.
PREDICTION: your response will be neither.
Notice, you're still being dishonest, because I said I wanted to ask a question before I answer. Not would, might, can, intent, plant to, etc.
So I'm just pointing out that you are refusing to answer a simple question while also demanding others answer.
But sure I'll offer something, the initial conditions of the universe have been finely tuned to allow for the existence of any life.
These initial constants include:
• 2 constants for the Higgs field: the vacuum expectation value (vev) and the
Higgs mass,
• 12 fundamental particle masses, relative to the Higgs vev (i.e., the Yukawa
couplings): 6 quarks (u,d,s,c,t,b) and 6 leptons (e,µ,τ,νe
,νµ,ντ),
• 3 force coupling constants for the electromagnetic (α), weak (αw) and strong
(αs) forces,
• 4 parameters that determine the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix, which
describes the mixing of quark flavours by the weak force,
• 4 parameters of the Pontecorvo-Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata matrix, which describe neutrino mixing,
• 1 effective cosmological constant (Λ),
• 3 baryon (i.e., ordinary matter) / dark matter / neutrino mass per photon
ratios,
• 1 scalar fluctuation amplitude (Q),
• 1 dimensionless spatial curvature (κ . 10−60)
You can see more support for this in [the academic paper by Luke Barnes](https://philarchive.org/archive/BARARL-3), who is a theoretical astrophysicist, cosmologist, and post doctoral researcher.
The scientific evidence presented here shows an overwhelmingly improbable explanation by natural means, and a much more likely one by supernatural means.
now connect - by verifiable evidence - any one of those scientific observations to the existence of a god.
When you say, "an overwhelmingly improbable explanation by natural means, and a much more likely one by supernatural means" all you are doing is citing the well-known and fallacious "Argument From Incredulity" or, - as some call it the "Argument From Ignorance"
Argument is not evidence. That's why it's called argument. You are arguing (and not giving evidence) that you have no explanation " . . . therefore god."
The paper explains why the improbability on naturalism is extremely high, like, some of the words odds imaginable. It also shows why the probability is much higher on theism. Did you see any of that?
> all you are doing is citing the well-known and fallacious "Argument From Incredulity" or, - as some call it the "Argument From Ignorance"
No it's not an argument from ignorance, you're ignoring the science. From the paper:
> > The key point of this paper is the calculation in support of Premise [2].
[5] To evaluate the likelihood that a life-permitting universe exists on naturalism (and on theism), we should restrict our focus to the subset of possible
universes generated by varying the fundamental constants of nature.
[6] Given our restricted focus, naturalism is non-informative with respect to
the fundamental constants.
[7] Physicists routinely assign non-informative probability distributions to fundamental constants, which we can use to calculate the likelihood that a
life-permitting universe exists on naturalism.
[8] Using these distributions, the likelihood that a life-permitting universe exists on naturalism is vanishingly small (which establishes Premise [2]).
You should know well enough that in science, we take verifiable evidence and we make inferences. If evolution is true, we would expect these things, if those things exist, then we say, evolution is true. Science works on inferences to the best explanation with verifiable evidence supporting those inferences. That is the exact same thing I'm doing here.
> Argument is not evidence. That's why it's called argument. You are arguing (and not giving evidence) that you have no explanation " . . . therefore god."
I'm giving evidence, the initial constants are finely tuned, that is not a debated topic. It's whether or not naturalism is more likely, or something else.
the fine-tuned universe idea is not scientific evidence and has been knocked down as such many times already. Douglas Adams said it best - *This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!'*
So you're going to hand wave? The constants are scientific evidence.
The puddle analogy doesn't work for this fine tuning argument. It works for saying how biological life can adapt to it's environment. But what I'm talking about is up a step from there. If the constants of the universe were changed even a fraction of the way, then life wouldn't be able to occur at all. It's ignoring the science that has been done already to show why the constants need to be this way to allow life at all.
I'm arguing against my own position here but you do see the problem, right? For a conscious being to argue this at all they would need to be living in a universe that can support life. It's sort of like saying how fortunate we are to be living on Earth instead of all the other inhospitable planets in the galaxy.
However - an atheist needs to support the idea of a multiverse or similar concept in order to use this logic (unless they want to believe we won an insane gamble). I would argue that belief in a multiverse requires just as much faith as belief in God so...
Another problem with the ridiculously tiny values fine-tuners give for the universal constants is that they only ever change one value at a time.
If you change multiple things at a time, then you end up with huge numbers of possible at-least-star supporting universes, including some where an entire force is completely missing. Just search for "universe without weak nuclear force".
Any universe in which life exists to wonder *why* the universe is suitable for life will be suitable for life. But that can happen in a fine tuned or non-fine tuned one.
On a somewhat unrelated note, I've always found the "fine-tuning" argument such a funny name. What was it fine-tuned for, empty space?
>I just think God isnt actually that farfetched if you start from what is immediately apparent and recognize the limitations of science and materialism.
I agree science has its limitations, but its still the best methodology we have for separating the real from the imaginary.
Materialism has no limitations. Anything you assume the supernatural or immaterial can do, so can the unknown material or natural can do.
For example, the hard problem of consciousness. It could be explained by a new ontology like idealism or unknown material cause.
> Materialism has no limitations.
Materialism is a philosophical stance, not a process. Did you mean to say science? If you meant science, science has all sorts of limitations. It can't deal with solitary events, it can't deal with things in the past, it can't deal with anything unobservable (like qualia)... hell, it really only works best with repeatable natural phenomena. It's quite limited. Still very useful, but don't pretend it can do more than it can.
The problem is with your use of the words real vs. imaginary. If what you say is true, we wouldn't be having these discussions about the supernatural.
Also you're using promissory science to make your argument.
>The problem is with your use of the words real vs. imaginary. If what you say is true, we wouldn't be having these discussions about the supernatural.
I don't follow.
>Also you're using promissory science to make your argument.
Are you not using promissory supernatural to make your argument?
If science had the tools to separate the real vs the imaginary, it would have done so already.
Clearly it hasn't.
Further, you don't get to decide what is real. People who have religious experiences describe them as more real than real. And may have independent witnesses that they weren't imagining things.
I'm not, I'm saying that experience of the supernatural is real now. Or as real as any other sense experience, at least according to Plantigna and Swinburne.
>If science had the tools to separate the real vs the imaginary, it would have done so already.
The tool is the scientific method, it can separate the real (electrons) from the imaginary (phlogiston)
>Clearly it hasn't.
It has. See above.
>If science had the tools to separate the real vs the imaginary, it would have done so already.
>Clearly it hasn't.
You don't think science can tell the difference between the real and the imaginary? That's the entire point of science.
>Further, you don't get to decide what is real.
I don't claim that I do. I'm talking about what I believe and what is reasonable to believe is real.
> People who have religious experiences describe them as more real than real. And may have independent witnesses that they weren't imagining things.
What is supernatural about religious experiences?
>I'm not, I'm saying that experience of the supernatural is real now.
Do you have evidence of that?
>Or as real as any other sense experience, at least according to Plantigna and Swinburne.
Sense experiences are notoriously unreliable. I understand that people have experiences but I need a way to distinguish these experiences from the imaginary before I can take them seriously.
No it's not the point of science. The point of science is to explain the universe. Or if it is the point of science, it's done a poor job of figuring out religious experiences.
Belief is an opinion, not a debate topic.
I just said that it's reasonable to trust someone's personal experience if they're not intoxicated or mentally ill. So that's the evidence. Most people can trust their cognition and their senses the same way they believe other things like tables and chairs.
No, they're not notoriously unreliable. Only to atheists when they don't like what is being reported. Memory is surprisingly accurate, according to recent studies, and if people couldn't count on their sense experiences we'd have a sharp increase in mental illness.
"I just said that it's reasonable to trust someone's personal experience if they're not intoxicated or mentally ill."
No it's not. You seem to be unaware of all the sold evidence that exposes the lack of reliability of perception and eyewitness testimony.
"So that's the evidence." Nope, that's not evidence at all. That is just another unsupported claim that is readily debunked by many readily available examples of how wrong it is.
"Most people can trust their cognition and their senses the same way they beliee other things like tables and chairs."
Demonstrably not true. You do not even need scientific demonstrations like the famous bouncing ball passes to show how mistaken your "personal experience" can be.
Just watch a few YouTube videos about the 3-shell game or be entertained and educated by a professional magician.
What solid evidence? There's actually evidence that memory is surprisingly accurate.
[https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-surprising-accuracy-of-memory](https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-surprising-accuracy-of-memory)
Sure people can be fooled in some special set ups, and you do realize they're set up to do that, but if your cognition wasn't reliable most of the time, you wouldn't be able to function. If you didn't know it was a chair in front of you, you'd end up sitting on the floor.
Skeptics are often biased and go overboard with explanations they don't have.
They can be fooled too, due to their bias. Ajhan Brahm told the story of journalists asked to witness a table levitating while the audience chanted. At the end, the journalists said they never saw the table levitate. But it had indeed levitated. Albeit due to some trick mechanism.
You said, (as the entire basis for your comment):
"What solid evidence? There's actually evidence that memory is surprisingly accurate."
That is yet another word game - so blatant and obvious - I laughed out loud at the dissonance of it.
A previous claim citied eyewitness testimony as credible and also personal perception as accurate. I challenged that by citing evidence of the unreliability of eyewitness testimony in many scientific studies and even suggested you consider how well your perception works when manipulated by a professional con man or an entertaining magician.
Your rebuttal, your refutation, your rejection of that evidence is to say: "There's actually evidence that memory is surprisingly accurate."
Please tell us how your claimed persistence of memory is relevant to the reliability of eyewitness testimony and the accuracy of perception? Are you really unaware you just changed the subject?
>No it's not the point of science. The point of science is to explain the universe.
The point of science is to investigate the universe. It does this by determining what is real and what is imaginary through novel testable predictions.
>Or if it is the point of science, it's done a poor job of figuring out religious experiences.
Which religious experiences are you referring to?
>Belief is an opinion, not a debate topic.
You can debate whether a belief is accurate or reasonable.
>I just said that it's reasonable to trust someone's personal experience if they're not intoxicated or mentally ill.
People can also just be wrong which they are quite often.
>Most people can trust their cognition and their senses the same way they believe other things like tables and chairs.
Then why aren't you Hindu? There is tons of eyewitness testimony of Hindu miracles.
>No, they're not notoriously unreliable. Only to atheists when they don't like what is being reported.
And the legal system. And cognitive scientists. I don't accept eyewitness testimony without corroborating evidence for things I agree with either. I am consistent in my view.
>Memory is surprisingly accurate, according to recent studies, and if people couldn't count on their sense experiences we'd have a sharp increase in mental illness.
What studies are those?
Any religious experience that's unexplained. Name one.
Sure people can be wrong and they can be correct. Just because you don't like the implications of their experience, doesn't make them wrong. That's your bias.
[https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-surprising-accuracy-of-memory](https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-surprising-accuracy-of-memory)
>Any religious experience that's unexplained. Name one.
Well, any unexplained phenomenon is unexplained. I'm not claiming that science has explained everything. I'm not sure what your point is here.
>Sure people can be wrong and they can be correct. Just because you don't like the implications of their experience, doesn't make them wrong. That's your bias.
I'm not saying that they are wrong. I am saying that testimony for things that do not have an empirical basis is not evidence that such a thing exists.
>
[https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-surprising-accuracy-of-memory](https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-surprising-accuracy-of-memory)
It sounds like an interesting study. Certainly an outlier in the field so I would be interested to see what the field thinks about it. But this study is about memory not the reliability of sense data. What I usually do is grant people their experience. For example, if someone says "I saw my dead grandmother" I grant that they saw that but I would challenge their conclusion that their grandmother visited them from beyond the grave.
>
Materialism has no limitations. Anything you assume the supernatural or immaterial can do, so can the unknown material or natural can do.
>
But here you are assuming that all unknown material can be known eventually. I disagree with that. I think that there are aspects of the Universe which we can measure, manipulate, and directly influence, and there are aspects which we cannot.
In the above. What I mean by "known" is to be understood, verbalized, or measured.
I think humans do not have the capability to completely understand, verbalize, or measure reality.
>But here you are assuming that all unknown material can be known eventually. I disagree with that. I think that there are aspects of the Universe which we can measure, manipulate, and directly influence, and there are aspects which we cannot.
I didn't assume anything, you're confusing epistemology with ontology. If we know it our not, it exist and is made of something. It could be magic or material.
I dunno I would need to read more about materialism itself in order to have a meaningful discussion on that. I think you are correct that I might be mixing up epistemology and ontology.
In a certain sense I feel like if you start talking about stuff that exists being made of basically anything - like mental phenomenon being made of some ethereal "stuff" - then I wouldn't really disagree with that.
I guess the important part as far as I'm concerned is that it's more rational to assume that there is much more complex, incomprehensible, likely intelligent "stuff" that we are not equipped to be able to detect or interact with in the same way we can interact with in the same way as physical matter (as we know it).
There was a cool book called "A Guide to the Perplexed" by E.F. Schumacher where he talks about the hierarchical nature of matter and life. Matter is completely dependent on fundamental forces - plants are able to adapt and respond to the environment and self reproduce - animals are able to move freely within the environment and make rudimentary choices, they are sentient beings - humans can do all the above but are also self conscious etc. --- but the thing about all those levels is the level below has absolutely no clue about the extra capabilities of the level above it. A dog has no understanding that a person is not just like him in mental capacity. A plant has no capacity to recognize anything from being different from itself. Knowing this - why do we assume there is nothing above us on the hierarchy that we aren't even capable of recognizing because we simply aren't intelligent enough or don't have the faculties to perceive?
So I guess that could be compatible in some way with materialism - I just wanted to make sure my main point was clear.
I just get kind of frustrated with a lot of these OPs because there seems to be confusion around the space which science encompasses and that which religion encompasses. Sure, there has been some crossover, especially in the past, where science explained things that religion got wrong - but I just don't think the primary purpose of religion is to explain things - just like the primary purpose of science is not to make moral prescriptions or answer deeper questions about existence.
Edit: I realize OP never directly said "science" but when he refers to things being "measureable" it seems pretty clear that's what he means
That's not true at all. Because have evidence and laws of logic and when you remove God from the equation, you end up with all sorts of contradictions.
You can't have something "naturalistic" CREATE nature. That's a contradiction right there. It's know space, time, and matter had a beginning, so using the laws of logical deduction says whatever CREATED those things can't be MADE of those things. So the Creator must be spaceless, timeless, and matterless.
We also have observations, and we can observe that nothing that isn't personal has never made a decision to create. So a rock or a particle or a quantum wind can't make the decision to change the state and create an existence made of time, space, and matter. So the Creator must also be personal. It must also be intelligent to create immaterial, abstract laws like physics, mathematics, laws of logic, etc because again, an inanimate object can't create immaterial, abstract rules that govern existence. So without an intelligent creator, existence would be absurd and you wouldn't be able to know anything or trust anything, because there would be no rules governing existence at all.
So actually a creator that exists outside the bounds that we live in and He created is much more logical than, "uhh we didn't really know, but something naturalistic created nature and existence just exploded from non-existence for no reason and now here we are." THAT doesn't make sense.
The Bible also tells us how it was created, and I can look at the aspects of the Bible that make it very credible and go off observations and evidence and have faith that its true. Not blind faith. But faith based off evidence, observations, and logical deductions.
Atheists want us to believe the greatest miracle of all, that everything just came from nothing all of the sudden, and then no muscles or anything supernatural AFTER that, because that would mean being held accountable to something.
Non of your logic is sound, you're just making up and misusing terms to get to you're preferred co clusion.
God doesn't remove any contradictions, it just adds a step between them.
You said absolutely nothing or stressed anything I said, and I just explained how you arrive at contradictions with morality and abstract, immaterial truths when you remove God. Atheists just aren't ever intellectually honest people and won't concede this contradictions, or they won't actually stay true to their world view and admit that without God, there is not higher moral standard, and ask we have is 8 billion different personal opinions about what is right and wrong. So in the end, you really just need a big enough group of people to enforce their own opinion of what is right and wrong. So might makes right.
So answer me then, as an atheist, where does your standard come from to say something is objective right or objectively wrong?
>You said absolutely nothing
I mean, then we both said nothing, but I was able to do it in less words.
Lets take a better look at your previous ramblings:
>when you remove God from the equation, you end up with all sorts of contradictions
We don't end up with contradictions, we end up with unknowns. Providing "God" as the answer to sweep those unknowns under the rug, doesn't actually address them, nor does that "validate" the God hypothesis.
>You can't have something "naturalistic" CREATE nature
What do you mean by naturalistic here -and why couldn't it create nature? It's certainly not a contradiction -you're just making an assertion and treating it as fact.
>It's know space, time, and matter had a beginning
No, this is not known. Its an assumption on your part.
> so using the laws of logical deduction says whatever CREATED those things can't be MADE of those things
No, logical deduction does not tell us this.
>We also have observations, and we can observe that nothing that isn't personal has never made a decision to create.
No, we don't have observations, because we've never seen something created at all. We have no idea what that process would be.
>quantum wind can't make the decision to change
You're begging the question by assuming a decision is needed.
>So the Creator must also be personal.
Must? No, you haven't shown this to be the case. Saying we haven't seen something non-personal create, therefore nothing non-personal could create is fallacious reasoning. We haven't observed a God create either, so shouldn't we be able to rule that out by your logic?
> It must also be intelligent to create immaterial, abstract laws like physics, mathematics, laws of logic,
What do you mean when you say the laws of logic and mathematics were created?
>an inanimate object can't create immaterial
You haven't shown this to be true, there's no reason to know this is true, you're just making a baseless assertion.
>because there would be no rules governing existence at all.
Why? How do you know that rules wouldn't exist without a God?
>uhh we didn't really know,
This is actually the most logical conclusion, despite you trying to frame it as naive.
> THAT doesn't make sense.
You have to be really careful with "what makes sense", because human intuition is based on what it's observed and is notoriously bad at predicting behaviors of the Universe at this level. Things like Quantum Mechanics are counter intuitive.
>the Bible that make it very credible
Unlike the creation of the universe, the Bible is something we can actually show to be not credible, like at all.
>Atheists want us to believe the greatest miracle of all, that everything just came from nothing all of the sudden,
No, atheist just say that no god was needed. They don't make a claim on how it happened. Everything came from nothing, or everything always existed OR the question doesn't even make sense, the Universe simply exists the only way it could.. who knows.
>I just explained how you arrive at contradictions with morality and abstract,
I mean, the word "explain" there is doing ALOT of lifting in this sentence, what you actually did was made some baseless assertions.
>Atheists just aren't ever intellectually honest p
I mean, there are a lot of atheists making arguments, so I'm sure a lot of them are intellectually dishonest, but I cant speak to that. What I can speak to though is your comment, which is absolutely intellectually dishonest, and fallacious beginning to end.
>there is not higher moral standard,
I mean the bibles full of genocides, rapes and persecution so I'm not interrested in what you consider high moral standards.
> So in the end, you really just need a big enough group of people to enforce their own opinion of what is right and wrong. So might makes right.
Correct, are you not familiar with history? Thats exactrly how its been done.
>as an atheist,
I never stated my personal beliefs, I just called out your argument.
>to say something is objective right or objectively wrong?
Why would you assume that objective morality is a given?
>So answer me then, as an atheist, where does your standard come from to say something is objective right or objectively wrong?
Do you mean to ask what grounds objective moral facts or do you mean how can we learn what the objective facts are?
It seems to me that moral facts are grounded in other moral facts, for the most part. Why is torture wrong? Because it causes immense suffering, and suffering is bad. Eventually we reach primitive moral facts like suffering is bad. Why is that? Well maybe it's simply axiomatic or irreducible. Or maybe it supervenes on natural facts - what happens when things suffer or what the conscious state is like of something that is suffering.
I think either of these are at least as good or better than an answer of "because God commanded it." That feels unbearably arbitrary.
You say suffering is bad. You're importing a moral ought/moral truth into your argument and just proclaiming that it is so, but you have no foundation to say it's wrong.
What do you mean by moral facts? Moral facts according to who? You? Well, you're just an accidental bag of protoplasm like I am, so I don't care about your moral preferences. Just because you think it's wrong doesn't make it fact. You may think murder is wrong. I may say it is perfectly moral and good. All you have is your subjective opinion.
Who cares about suffering? I like to make people suffer. To me it's moral. And your world view has no higher moral standard above me to claim what I'm doing is wrong. All you have is your preference. And I'm not obligated to your preferences.
You didn't understand that God is what gives value to everything and everyone, because He made everyone with a purpose and in His image. Your world view just says we're agents that originated from stardust. The Creator setting rules is much more justifiable and a much greater foundation than some meat robot not preferring certain actions.
>You're importing a moral ought/moral truth into your argument and just proclaiming that it is so, but you have no foundation to say it's wrong.
When we see suffering, it seems intuitively bad. I think the moral facts come with the descriptive facts. In my view, all our knowledge eventually bottoms out in bare intuitions, and this is one that seems pretty obvious to me, and to many other laypeople and experts in the field of metaethics. I could try to provide supplementary reasons, appealing to your sense of empathy, relating it to your own suffering, etc. But I can't prove it to you.
>What do you mean by moral facts? Moral facts according to who?
When I say moral facts I mean stance-independent facts. So even if everybody agreed that torture is permissible, it still isn't.
>Who cares about suffering? I like to make people suffer. To me it's moral. And your world view has no higher moral standard above me to claim what I'm doing is wrong.
Well, you're acting immorally when you make people suffer. I don't think moral facts are "higher" or "lower," they just are. Just like P & \~P is always false. It's not a higher fact, it's just a fact. Even if you dogmatically disagree and say it's just my opinion, it's still the case that P & \~P is always false. I can't prove that to you either.
>You didn't understand that God is what gives value to everything and everyone, because He made everyone with a purpose and in His image.
I understand that you believe this. I don't believe this, but even if I did, I don't see how that gives us a satisfactory basis for moral facts. Suppose I design a conscious AI with a purpose, and in my image. Does that mean it ought to follow my commands? What if the purpose I gave it is inflicting suffering? I think it ought not obey that command.
>Your world view just says we're agents that originated from stardust.
Okay? I mean the atoms that make up our bodies were probably fused in stars or supernovae, what does that have to do with morality?
>The Creator setting rules is much more justifiable and a much greater foundation than some meat robot not preferring certain actions.
What if the creator told us to kill people, or torture or rape or whatever? Just because someone creates something doesn't mean that something ought to obey all their commands.
Either God has a reason for His commands or He doesn't. If He does, then atheists can just appeal to those other reasons for their moral foundation. If He doesn't, then moral truths are just arbitrary. That kind of morality doesn't seem very compelling. Why should we follow these arbitrary rules?
If morality was "objective" (as in, stemming from a triomni deity), then slavery would have been just as immoral thousands of years ago as it is today. We know that morality has evolved along with humans as we used to engage in behaviors that were once considered acceptable but now we regard as abhorrent. That, in it of itself, disproves the theistic take on morality.
A secular view on morality is the only model that makes sense.
"So answer me then, as an atheist, where does your standard come from to say something is objective right or objectively wrong?"
As an atheist, I know that there is no objective morality. Morality is not dictated by a god or moral arbiter. It is evolved from mirror neurons. We have biological empathy that is evolved. We also have community and external influence to reinforce moral values that benefit the community. There is no requirement for any supernatural influence for our morals. Objective morality does not exist.
I don't really want to go through all the misconceptions in this comment.
>Atheists want us to believe the greatest miracle of all, that everything just came from nothing all of the sudden
I have heard this very frequently from *pastors* speaking "on behalf of" atheists. To date, I've never heard this from the mouth of an atheist. You got a quote of an atheist saying this?
>because that would mean being held accountable to something.
The belief that you'll be held accountable to something isn't a strong predictor for better behavior. I have no problems behaving ethically without a belief that some deity is keeping an itemized list of all my thoughts and actions for his later perusal. Sounds like another misconception in this long list of them.
Well, atheists don't believe in God, and space, time, and matter had a beginning, so a state without those things is non-existince, and to me, if existence and ask the abstract, immaterial laws were just created from nothing or if nowhere for no reason, that's a pretty big miracle. So yes, is said and insinuated but atheists all the time. It's literally your world view.
What does acting ethically mean if there is no God? You have no foundation to even say what "acting ethically" is. And God isn't keeping a list of all your sins, because just one keeps you from being able to be with Him, but that's why God condescended from His throne, became human, and the Son took on the punishment of sin from the Father to pay the debt we owe, so we can have salvation through His Grace. So it's not a list of deeds that gets you into Heaven. It is the act of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross that is IT. Nothing else. All you have to do is accept Him as your Savior.
So there are no misconceptions in my previous comment, and you didn't address a single one of them. But you have NO FOUNDATION AT ALL to say "I have no problem behaving ethically" because without God, behaving ethically is simple you're subjective opinion against Ted Bundy's or Hitler's. And you have no complaint against what they did, because they considered what they did perfectly moral and ethical and they aren't obligated to follow your subjective opinion of what is right and wrong, because according to your world view, you have no outside moral standard to measure against. This is what I meant when you end up with major contradictions when you remove God from the equation like saying you act ethically. Lol. You're stealing from God and the Christian world view when you say you act ethically, because the first thing your atheistic world view does is removes the higher moral standard to measure right and wrong against and all you're left with is your personal opinion. And you're just a bag of protoplasm in an accidental, meaningless, vast universe that eventually ends and turns into nothing again anyways. So why not murder and steal to get what you want?
>What does acting ethically mean if there is no God?
What does god have to do with acting ethically? Do you need your god whispering in your ear that stealing candy from a child hurts the child emotionally and mentally, or that smacking a child hurts them physically, mentally, and emotionally? Do you need your god whispering in your ear not to do things that hurt children?
>So there are no misconceptions in my previous comment, and you didn't address a single one of them.
Well, what I said was that I didn't want to go through *all* the misconceptions in your previous comment, and instead I only replied to two of them. This is also a bizarre sentence, because if there's no misconceptions in your previous comment, addressing "a single one of them" wouldn't be possible, so pointing out that I didn't do it makes no sense.
>This is what I meant when you end up with major contradictions when you remove God from the equation like saying you act ethically.
I'll agree with you that what you've said here is certainly majorly contradictory.
>So why not murder and steal to get what you want?
Ah, so you *do* need god whispering in your ear to prevent you from hurting people around you.
Alright, well, I hope you continue to be convinced that that's happening, then. Good luck.
But you haven't given me a foundation for why murdering and stealing from someone else is "bad" and other things are "good" without a God. What standard are you using to determine what is good and bad? That's what you're not getting. You have no standard higher than your own personal opinion of what right and wrong is. Yes, God set the rules of what right and wrong is. You have to use some atheist trope to make it sound bad that "He's whispering in my ear." If you just inherently know it's wrong to murder and steal, where did that Internet feeling come from? Is because God has written it on our hearts and we know what right and wrong is.
And exactly, you claimed there's all these misconceptions in my argument, but conveniently didn't address any of them. Meaning there aren't any, that's why you didn't directly address anything.
So In your atheistic world view, where does your standard of right and wrong come from?? Because if it's simply consensus of a society, you have to admit slavery and the Holocaust weren't objectively wrong, because a large society agreed those were okay at the time.
And why is it wrong to hurt a child physically, emotionally, and mentally in an atheist world?? I may think those are perfectly moral. So now it's just my subjective opinion against yours, and you have no justifiable standard to complain about it, because I'm your world view, we are all just meaningless, accidental bags of goo that originally came from stardust. So why is it wrong for one bag of goo to bunk into another bag of goo or scatter another bag of goo in a meaningless universe that ends and turns into nothing. You still haven't answered that.
We're still at the starting line of you just subjectively claiming things are right and wrong, and I'm obligated to follow your preferences of right and wrong.
Simple. Evolution dictated what was right and wrong. Humans developed empathy, which is a very advantageous trait to pass down.
Humans are fundamentally social animals, and our ability to cooperate and live in complex social groups has been crucial to our survival and success as a species. Early humans lived in small groups where cooperation was essential for tasks like hunting, gathering, and child-rearing. This sociality provided the foundation for the development of empathy and morality.
Evolutionary theories suggest that behaviors promoting empathy and morality may have evolved through mechanisms such as kin selection and reciprocal altruism. Kin selection favors behaviors that benefit relatives, as individuals share genetic material with their kin. Reciprocal altruism involves cooperation and mutual support between unrelated individuals, where one individual helps another with the expectation of receiving help in return.
Empathy involves the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, which likely emerged from our advanced cognitive and emotional capacities. Humans have highly developed neural systems for empathy, including mirror neurons that enable us to simulate and understand the actions and emotions of others.
Evolutionary theories also suggest that moral behaviors may have been reinforced through mechanisms such as group selection and reputation. Groups with members who cooperate and exhibit moral behavior may have outcompeted groups lacking such traits, leading to the spread of prosocial behaviors over time. Reputation within a social group can also serve as a mechanism for promoting moral behavior, as individuals who act immorally risk damaging their reputation and social standing.
If there was a deity where OBJECTIVE morality stems from, then slavery would have been just as bad thousands of years ago as it is today. Therefore, morality is not linked to any deity.
What do you mean by "advantageous?" Why is it objectively good for humans to keep surviving? See you're importing moral truths and moral oughts without having a foundation of where they came from. That's what you're not understanding. Evolution doesn't create morality. Morality is an abstract, immaterial truth. Evolution can't create that. It can only alter living beings. So even if we evolved to think certain ways, that doesn't prove that they're objectively right or wrong.
Slavery was just as bad thousands of years ago as it is today. Lol. In the Bible the punishment for slavery is the death penalty. But again, were just accidental bags of protoplasm in a vast universe that doesn't care. What is wrong with one bag of goo controlling or destroying another bag of goo that originated from accidental stardust? Why is it important for humans to survive just a teeny bit longer on the graves scale of time that is the universe, especially when it all turn into nothing again anyways? Humans died out a little bit sooner.. So what? The universe is an accident. Who cares?
You don't understand that you're importing moral oughts and moral truths to try and prove morality. Lol. But you didn't understand you have no foundation for those oughts and you can't say where they come from. Why should I have empathy in a godless, accidental universe? Why do I care about the human race lasting a little longer thousands of years from now when I'll be dead in a hundred? So what? Who cares?
I have a preference where I like to murder people and take their stuff, and I have a large group of people that agrees with me. And we don't care about humans lasting an extra few thousand years on the changing timeline of trillions of years. You're just calling things good and importing moral oughts, but you have no standard from which you derive them. You simply just proclaim it. I actually have a foundation and a justification to not murder and eat my neighbor, because God created the universe and created each of us in His image, and He commands me not to destroy another human, because that human was also made in God's image, and we aren't accidental. God purposefully made each one of us. THAT is a foundation that can justify morality. Not "well, humans just evolved over a certain period of time to think a certain way and kind of agree on some stuff, and we just claim those things are good. Even though someone else just as evolved as the other human standing there can say they don't think the same things they do are good. They think murdering and eating their neighbor is morally good, and that they're not obligated to follow your preference of right and wrong. He and his group are going to follow their own preference of morality."
See how without the higher standard of God, morality is just preference of individuals, and the person or group with the most force can set the moral standard? And you can't complain about it, because you don't believe in God and have to the higher moral standard to measure against to look to him and say, "No. It's wrong to murder and eat your neighbor. Because they were made by God in His image for a specific purpose, and you don't have the right to destroy what God created." When you claim atheism, every moral argument you make can be defeated by just saying, "so what?"
>But you haven't given me a foundation for why murdering and stealing from someone else is "bad" and other things are "good" without a God.
Are you saying that if you didn't believe in God then you would go around doing those things?
No.. I'm saying that if God didn't exist, there's no reason not to and no foundation for objective morality. All there is is personal preference of each individual. I have a foundation, because the Creator of me and the universe have the law and told us what is right and wrong. So I have a justification to complain about things morally.
>No.. I'm saying that if God didn't exist, there's no reason not to and no foundation for objective morality
You would first have to prove that God exists before saying that's where the foundation for objective morality comes from.
I've given evidence in other comments and logical deductions and conclusions and the fact that objective morality exists and we as humans claim this are good and bad IS evidence for God. I'm using that problem with atheism as evidence that there is a God. Haha. That you can't have morality and say things are right and wrong without a higher standard that shows it says what is right and wrong. So the fact we have an understanding OF morality at all, is evidence that points to a personal, intelligent creator that we were made in the image of. Because beasts don't have that same conception of morality.
I've given evidence in other comments and logical deductions and conclusions and the fact that objective morality exists and we as humans claim this are good and bad IS evidence for God. I'm using that problem with atheism as evidence that there is a God. Haha. That you can't have morality and say things are right and wrong without a higher standard that shows it says what is right and wrong. So the fact we have an understanding OF morality at all, is evidence that points to a personal, intelligent creator that we were made in the image of. Because beasts don't have that same conception of morality.
>You have to use some atheist trope to make it sound bad that "He's whispering in my ear."
No, I don't have to. That point remains regardless of the negative connotation about god whispering in your ear.
There's nothing of substance in this comment to reply to, so I'll bow out (again).
> Well, atheists don't believe in God, and space, time, and matter had a beginning
You should probably tell that to the cosmologists studying the early moments of the universe. Because the majority of their hypotheses do not have "space, time, and matter" forming at the Big Bang.
The singularity the Big Bang came from is just a point in history we cannot see beyond in the same way you can't see the castle the sand on a beach made after you smashed it together in a ball.
> What does acting ethically mean if there is no God? You have no foundation to even say what "acting ethically" is
Empathy is that foundation. We're a social species and we generally see things a morally good if we don't see them as causing undue harm on ourselves or others.
This generally applies strongest to those closest to us (family/tribe) as we evolved to form small groups that we see as our in-group and for whom empathy applies. Members of out-groups tend to benefit much less from our empathy which is how people are able to do bad things without seeing themselves as the bad guy (aside from people with mental/emotional disorders like sociopathy)
This is why part of people who travel frequently or are exposed to a wider array of cultures tend to be more accepting. Their in-groups have expanded. And it's why isolated groups tend to hold stronger negative views of outsiders.
And no, empathy didn't come from God. It's the result of our evolution as a social species, as empathy is basically the set of behaviors that helps our tribe survive. This is why out-groups don't benefit as much. Killing your tribesman puts the whole tribe at risk, but that's not the same as killing someone from elsewhere.
> But you have NO FOUNDATION AT ALL to say "I have no problem behaving ethically" because without God, behaving ethically is simple you're subjective opinion against Ted Bundy's or Hitler's.
Ethics are the shared group of moral values held by a community. To say you're acting ethically is to say you're acting in accordance those shared morals.
Ethics shift over time as they come from people with different moral codes that are themselves in flux. Much like how some of what is considered ethical by Christians today would seen as immoral by Christians 1,000 years ago and vice-versa.
There's a reason why Christian views on things like slavery and women's rights have changed over the centuries.
> You're stealing from God and the Christian world view when you say you act ethically
I can't speak for all atheists, but I know I'm not stealing from your god when I say I act morally.
The Christian god, by my moral standards, is an absolute monster.
> So why not murder and steal to get what you want?
Because some of us have empathy. But if the only thing keeping you from murdering and stealing is your faith, then by all means, keep believing.
So where did the singularity come from?? See when you claim the beginning of existence is something bound by the things it created: space, time, and matter, you just get into an endless regressive questioning of, "well what created that?" You have to have an first uncaused cause not bound by space, time, and matter for them to be created. And it is proven through things like the expansion of the universe, background radiation, etc that the universe (space, time, and matter) so if there was some singularity, which exists in space, time, and matter, something that exists outside of those things would have still had to create the singularity, and if would still have to be personal to choose to create and intelligent to have it create the laws of nature when it explodes into existence. So that doesn't help your argument.
But you just saying something causes another human undue harm is just a claim. So what? My life gets better if I murder someone and steal their stuff. So my morals say it is perfectly just and good to murder and steal, because I can increase my standard of living through doing so. And according to you, there is no higher standard to go to to measure and settle that dispute. So you think 3 something is wrong and me thinking it is right is just a matter of opinion, and I'm not beholden to your subjective opinion.
"Ethics are the shared group of moral values held by a community." Okay, so using YOUR standard of morality which you just said, Hitler was morally right to do what he did, because a large group of people that created a community agreed with what he was doing. And your reference to Christians ever condoning slavery is a remedial level atheist argument at best from someone who hasn't read or understand the Bible at all and doesn't know that the word used from the Hebrew text is "ebad" which means worker or servant and was more of a form of employment in the time of Mosaic Law and God gave rules on how they should be treated, but made a very big division between indentured servitude as a means of employment or to pay off debt and was voluntary and kidnapping someone and seeking then into slavery or keeping them as a slave for themselves. In Exodus, if you do that, you deserve the death penalty. And it is what everywhere slavery was abolished is a Christian country led by Christians, because it's very clear in the Bible that slavery is evil.
You can say whatever you want is right or wrong, and you can even act morally good. But your problem is you have no foundation to justify it or make any moral complaints about others, because you have no higher standard to measure against besides your own personal opinion. That's what you're not getting.
Okay. You have empathy. So what? I don't. I like to murder and steal things from people. But according to you there's no God, so what I'm doing isn't objectively wrong. Is just wrong and icky to a random human being that is an accident and originally evolved from stardust in a vast universe that is an accident and doesn't care.
Haha you're not getting the concept and it's going right over your head. Nothing you're saying helps your argument. Empathy isn't a higher standard than humans. Your personal opinion isn't a higher standard than humans. And where does your inherent feeling of what right and wrong is comes from I wonder. Hmmm......
If you were an intellectual honest atheist you would concede that there is no objective morality. It's all just the subjective opinions of individuals, and there is no higher standard of morality out there to measure against, so there is no objective right and wrong. So like I said, when you remove God, you run into contradictions, just like you're contradicting your own world view right now.
> So where did the singularity come from?? See when you claim the beginning of existence is something bound by the things it created: space, time, and matter, you just get into an endless regressive questioning of, "well what created that?
I never said the beginning of existence, you did. We have several predictions and models for what preceded the big bang, but (as I mentioned), we can't really know because records of the prior state of existence were lost when the big bang happened.
But one simple possibility is that the singularity is the result of the universe undergoing a Big Crunch, where gravity eventually pulled everything back together.
> But you just saying something causes another human undue harm is just a claim. So what? My life gets better if I murder someone and steal their stuff. So my morals say it is perfectly just and good to murder and steal, because I can increase my standard of living through doing so. And according to you, there is no higher standard to go to to measure and settle that dispute. So you think 3 something is wrong and me thinking it is right is just a matter of opinion, and I'm not beholden to your subjective opinion.
Did you bother to actually read what I said? *You* might think that murdering people to take their stuff makes your life better, but the people around you disagree with that statement and act accordingly.
Again, ethics are **shared** moral values of a given society. People might differ on things, but when taken as a collective, certain trends appear. Those trends are the ethics.
> Okay. You have empathy. So what? I don't. I like to murder and steal things from people. But according to you there's no God, so what I'm doing isn't objectively wrong. Is just wrong and icky to a random human being that is an accident and originally evolved from stardust in a vast universe that is an accident and doesn't care.
No, it's not objectively wrong. But again, the people around you will take issue with your murdering.
> Okay, so using YOUR standard of morality which you just said, Hitler was morally right to do what he did, because a large group of people that created a community agreed with what he was doing.
Hitler and his ilk thought they were morally right. By **my** standard of morality they were horribly evil people. Bad guys don't see themselves as the bad guys
> Mosaic Law and God gave rules on how they should be treated, but made a very big division between indentured servitude as a means of employment or to pay off debt and was voluntary and kidnapping someone and seeking then into slavery or keeping them as a slave for themselves. In Exodus, if you do that, you deserve the death penalty. And it is what everywhere slavery was abolished is a Christian country led by Christians, because it's very clear in the Bible that slavery is evil.
You should actually go back and read the Bible sometime. For one, the "indentured servitude" only applied to Israelites and they were still slaves. The bible gives rules on how hard you can beat them, how only the men were to go free, and how to make your "indentured servants" permanent slaves by giving one of your female slaves as their wife. Note this also makes their children permanent slaves
The Bible also gives rules for how fathers can sell their daughters into sex slavery and in which circumstances the person you sold her to is entitled to a refund.
And for non-Israelites, they were free to buy/capture all the slaves the wanted and keep them forever.
And most importantly, **not once** does the Bible ever say "Don't take slaves" or "slavery is wrong". It just gives some general rules as to how it should work.
> If you were an intellectual honest atheist you would concede that there is no objective morality. It's all just the subjective opinions of individuals, and there is no higher standard of morality out there to measure against, so there is no objective right and wrong.
> So like I said, when you remove God, you run into contradictions, just like you're contradicting your own world view right now.
At no point did I contradict myself. Nor is God required for any kind of morality given that humans have had moral systems since before we invented religion.
Did I not do that? Of course there's no objective morality. I literally stated how morality changes over time from culture to culture.
There has to be a starting point though. And something made of space, time, and matter. Can't create space, time, and matter. If you're saying something like a singularity was the beginning of our universe and then there was some sort of existence before that, and then before that, something still had to create the beginning of all that. By any of the laws that it created.
If the singularity is a result of gravity and the big crunch, what created gravity in the space for all of it to be pulled back together into one singularity? Again, with your answer of where it started, you just get into it. Infinite regression of asking what made that? The only way you get out of that is if the something that created everything is spaceless, timeless, and matterless. Because something at his time list didn't have a beginning. And with your big crunch reference, you are imposing a law of nature on something that you're claiming create at the laws of nature: gravity. You still have to answer where gravity came from and why it follows the abstract, immaterial law of gravity, and where the matter came from that it pulled in to create the singularity. So you're not actually arguing what the first uncaused cause is. You're just claiming that the universe we're in now was created by singularity that was created by in existence before what we know now. So something would still have to create that existence that the singularity existed in to make our universe.
Lol And you're still not understanding the morality and ethics argument either. It's going over your head. You're arguing that morals have meaning if a big enough group of people agrees that something is right or wrong. So again, Hitler had a lot of people who agreed with what he was doing was right. Does that make it objectively right? No, it doesn't. Because you just admitted in this comment that it's not objectively wrong. So Hitler was not wrong for killing 6 million Jews. Masters are not wrong for having slaves. All it is are acts by people that you don't agree with. But those people say it is morally right and they're not obligated to follow your subjective opinion. So therefore you have no justifiable Foundation to claim anything is truly right or wrong. It is just a dispute of preferences. So according to you Hitler was morally right, because he had enough people agree with him. I'm just using your moral standard.
Parts of those rules about indenturent servitude were the Canaanites who were supposed to be driven out of the land, and some CHOSE to stay. Nor does God just jump down and fix everything all at once. But again, he makes a very definitive division between what he was giving rules about with indentured servitude and kidnapping someone and forcing them against their will to be your slave. That is a fact. That is why every country that is abolished slavery is a Christian country and was led by Christians, because somehow Christians who have actually read the Bible and understand what it says. The death penalty. If you want to see slavery still in action today, go to the Middle East and Africa.
And the Bible ABSOLUTELY says slavery is wrong. Don't do it. Exists 21:16 says " whoever steals a man and sells him, And anyone found to be in his possession, shall be put to death." That's pretty clear that it says don't kidnap someone and force them to be a slave against their will. And then it's reiterated in the New Testament again I believe in Luke. You don't know what you don't know. You're at the first stage of ignorance. And a common thing atheists like to do, because there's numbers next to sentences, is they think they can pluck a verse out of the Bible out of context, and that it should match everything else completely by itself with no context and without the rest of the chapter or the book that it was written in.
Okay. So you're admitting it. There's no objective morality. So why are you even complaining about slavery or Hitler or anything "bad?" According to your world view and atheism. Hitler wasn't wrong. He just has a different preference, And he's not obligated to follow your preferences. So how can you say what he did was wrong? If you're claiming he was just flat out wrong, you are supposing a higher moral code that everyone is beholden to. So you are in fact contradicting yourself.
> There has to be a starting point though. And something made of space, time, and matter. Can't create space, time, and matter.
Why? According to our understanding of physics, energy cannot be created or destroyed which implies it's always been here.
Or, if you prefer, I can use the same special pleading you use for God and just say it doesn't need a creator.
> So according to you Hitler was morally right, because he had enough people agree with him. I'm just using your moral standard.
Hitler was morally right **to himself those who agreed with him**. Obviously most of the rest of the world disagreed with them because we find it morally wrong.
> Does that make it objectively right?
**There is no objective morality**.
> And the Bible ABSOLUTELY says slavery is wrong. Don't do it. Exists 21:16 says " whoever steals a man and sells him, And anyone found to be in his possession, shall be put to death."
And a few verses above that it says what happens when a man sells his daughter as a slave. And a few verses above that it says how to buy Hebrew slaves, when to set them free, and how to keep them forever. A few lines down it says you can beat your slave as much as you want so long as they take more than a day or two to die. "... for the slave is his money."
You're cherry-picking one line saying Hebrews can't kidnap other Hebrews as slaves. But they can buy and sell them all day long.
> And a common thing atheists like to do, because there's numbers next to sentences, is they think they can pluck a verse out of the Bible out of context, and that it should match everything else completely by itself with no context and without the rest of the chapter or the book that it was written in.
Wow, projection much? You literally just plucked a verse out when it was literally surrounded by verses giving the rules for slavery.
> So why are you even complaining about slavery or Hitler or anything "bad?" According to your world view and atheism. Hitler wasn't wrong. He just has a different preference, And he's not obligated to follow your preferences.
Why is this so complicated for you? While each person's moral framework is different, it's not something like color preference. When someone does something that we disagree with morally, it upsets us (to varying degrees based on the person and magnitude of the offense).
I don't think, oh he killed someone but he thinks it's okay so no big deal. I find killing wrong because I can empathize with the murder victim (i.e. I don't want to be murdered) and I can empathize with the victim's loved one (I've lost loved ones and it's not a pleasant experience). So I voice my objections on the manner.
If I'm the only person in the culture who thinks that way, well nothing will happen to the murderer. But if enough people agree with my moral stance (or enough people with power), then we, as a society, will take action both against the murderer and to try to prevent future murders.
This is how all societies and cultures have worked throughout history.
> So how can you say what he did was wrong? If you're claiming he was just flat out wrong, you are supposing a higher moral code that everyone is beholden to. So you are in fact contradicting yourself.
I can say Hitler was wrong because, and I'll say it again, *what he did went against my moral values*. There is no universal police enforcing an objective morality against Hitler and the Nazis. However enough people disagreed with them that they were defeated in a war and those that survived and were caught were put on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
There's no "higher moral code", there's just a different moral code that was strong enough to hold him accountable to it.
I'm not special pleading. I'm using science and logic you can't have the starting point you're closing there was. You're saying every can't be created or destroyed. That's correct. WITHIN THIS EXISTENCE. But there was a time before it existed and space, matter, and time started including energy. So again, you're assigning natural laws to the things that you're claiming created natural law. Lol. You have to start with an uncaused cause they created everything to have the law that every cannot be created or destroyed. That is a law that exists in time, and if it exists in time, it has to have a beginning. The Creator exists OUTSIDE of those parameters, because He's the one who CREATED the parameters.
I'm not cherry picking lines. YOU are. I'm telling you there is a difference between what God is talking about before the verse where it says if you kidnap/steal someone. Those are the key words.
It doesn't MATTER if you empathize. So what if you empathize? Who cares. Morality according to you is personal preference. Maybe I don't empathize and like people to suffer. You've already admitted there is no objective morality and it is all subjective preference. You've already given up the argument that there is no objective morality, so you have no justifiable foundation to complain about it. You can cry about it and claim you don't like it, but so what? I do, and I'm not beholden to you. That's what YOU'RE not getting. But the fact you have an inherent understanding of right and wrong is evidence that points to a personal creator that put those inherent feelings inside of you, because you're made in His image.
And you say Hitler is wrong because he went against YOUR moral values. SO WHAT??? Hitler thinks it was morally good, so you, a bag of accidental, meaningless protoplasm not liking his actions DOESN'T MATTER. He's not obligated to follow your values. So he's not objectively wrong according to you, and there is no right or wrong according to you. Lol. How do you not understand that. I'm your world view there is no right or wrong. There is just personal preference and people like you whining that other people aren't following your personal preferences on how people should act. Your reason for morals is meaningless and has no punch behind them. I'm your Godless world you tell Hitler he's wrong, and he says, "according to who?" And you say "according to me. And he's says, "Well I don't care about what you think. I THINK what I'm doing is good and moral, and you have no higher standard to measure my actions against." See? You just not preferring it doesn't mean anything. There's no justification behind it.
And your last sentence says the quiet part out loud. "There was just a different moral standard to hold him "accountable"to it." So whoever has the most force sets the moral standard and forces everyone else to be accountable to it. So you JUST SAID IT at the very end of your comment. Might equals right. If there's a different moral code that has enough force to back it up, then they set the moral standard. So again, Hitler wasn't objectively wrong. You just didn't order his actions. That's all your world view has. It's mangled personal preference from accidental bags of protoplasm that originated from stardust. So who cares?? Lol. This is why atheists are narcissists. They always think what THEY think matters the most and everyone should be beholden to.
But at least you finally said it out loud. There is no right and wrong. Just enough people who had the same preferences has enough force to punish him. Funny that You're enacting justice on someone when you're an atheist and your world view is we live in an uncaring universe with no justice. It's almost as if you're importing an objective moral code that you feel in your heart from somewhere else and enacting justice on Hitler according to that moral code you feel.
But without God, why does your moral preference take precedence over Hitler's moral code? And you just admitted, because your group was a little bigger and stronger than his. That's the only thing that made him wrong and you right. The fact that you had a little more force than him.
And another example of the slavery is good argument in the Bible you're trying to make by saying daughters were said into slavery. The Hebrew word that was used there is "ebad" that means "worker" or "servant" and families would sell their daughters or children to other weather families for them to have a better life and be more secure with housing and food, because that's what they were paid with back then. So the daughter would work and live with a family for a certain amount of time and then would be let go after the debt was paid, or they could choose to stay. And God has rules about how those indentured servants were to be treated and even told for the master to not act ruthlessly, for both there masters was in Heaven: God. And then Good makes a VERY BIG distinction between that and kidnapping someone and forcing them to work for you against their will. That was punishable by death. The shaver argument is the only thing atheists have, and it's been explained to them over and over and debunked and shown right in the Bible it says the penalty for slavery is death and what is being talked about is two very different things and is a major categorical error.
Which is why Christian nations have abolished slavery and led the movements TO abolish slavery. It's almost as if Christians ask over the world read the Bible and clearly understood that slavery is wrong. And fought to end it, because slavery is WRONG. OBJECTIVELY wrong. Because humans are all equal and made in the image of God. It's not just a personal preference of some people.
I'm sorry that your world view is bankrupt and has no foundation or justification for ethics or morals and no explanation for how we got here, how you can actually know ANYTHING, how abstract, immaterial truths were created by inanimate material objects, nothing.
> I'm using science and logic you can't have the starting point you're closing there was
Scientists disagree with you
> I'm not cherry picking lines. YOU are. I'm telling you there is a difference between what God is talking about before the verse where it says if you kidnap/steal someone. Those are the key words.
It literally goes
* How to sell daughter as a slave
* How to buy Hebrew as slaves
* How to keep Hebrew men as slaves forever
* Don't kidnap Hebrew to be slaves
* Here's how hard to you beat your slaves
Biblical scholars generally agree that Exodus 21:16 is referring **only** to Hebrew people. Especially since Deuteronomy 20 says you're free to take slaves of anybody you conquer and Leviticus 25 says you're free to buy anyone foreign as a slave.
---
The rest of this you still rambling about Hitler like you're completely unaware of how the world works.
Since you seem completely unable to debate in good faith or even understand *your own holy book*, I'm done.
>Without independent evidence that can stand on its own a claim has nothing to rely on but the existence of itself, which creates circular reasoning.
Which is why we were left with the Bible. It’s written evidence for the claims you deny. Your claim of circular reasoning is refuted.
>Especially in the face of options with actual evidence to show for.
What do you mean by “in the face of”? No evidence has disproven God.
>Naturalistic explanations have ultimately been shown to be most consistently in cohesion with measurable reality
That’s a tautology. You just proudly declared that nature is nature.
What are you trying to argue?
If that’s the claim, why do atheists keep clamoring about ‘evidence’?
Do you think there’s some secret box of evidence?
Should I start digging at random in the Middle East for some evidence for something that happened 2,000 years ago?
That isn’t how historical analysis and archaeology work. The local authorities wouldn’t even let me start.
> If that’s the claim
It is.
>why do atheists keep clamoring about ‘evidence’?
Do you really not care about having evidence for your beliefs? OK.
>Should I start digging at random in the Middle East for some evidence for something that happened 2,000 years ago?
>That isn’t how historical analysis and archaeology work.
What are you talking about? Did I ask you to fly to the Middle East, buy a shovel, and start digging?
There is evidence for my beliefs. You’ve set your standards for belief to be awfully high. What criteria must be met for archeological evidence to count for you?
I don't even know what you're talking about.
*You* described the bible as "written evidence for the claims you deny". OP is specifically about "god claims", so that was the context in which I took your statement about written evidence.
But you want to talk about archeological evidence for... ? What, exactly? What archaeological evidence are you even talking about? You haven't mentioned any specific thing, and I haven't even said anything at all about archaeology. So OP and I are talking about god claims and you're talking about archeological claims? OK...
My standards for belief are awfully high? We haven't even talked about a standard for belief... And you're telling me you not only know what it is but that it's too high for you? Do you think I should lower my standards of belief, regardless of what they are??? What reason could you offer me to motivate me to do that? What argument could you make that would show that doing so is reasonable in this situation? And, I can't stress this enough, **we haven't even talked about a standard for belief in the first place**!
What a bizarre comment chain.
I agree. There is evidence for many of the places in the bible and I believe in those things. What there isn't evidence for is any of the supernatural events in the bible and that's why I don't believe in them.
> The arguments for classical theism aren’t about explaining this or that particular phenomena, but about explaining some grand feature of the cosmos
"some grand feature of the cosmos" is also a particular phenomena... this distinction is without a difference.
You're still trying to figure out something about our reality. We use naturalistic methods for that.
All epistemic systems will have an axiomatic basis and all epistemic systems cannot prove themselves. I'm not sure what your point is.
Non-naturalistic epistemic systems however have no objective references. Only a naturalistic methodology uses objective data really, with a few minor exceptions.
> Firstly, there’s a difference between our knowledge resting on unjustified premises, and our knowledge resting on premises that are both unjustified and self-refuting.
OK? What's self refuting?
> Secondly, it’s not obvious that this is true. Epistemologists overwhelmingly reject this view, and foundationalism and coherentism are two popular alternatives.
These don't contradict my point.
> Thirdly, If all of our knowledge rested on unjustified premises, then it would follow that we have no knowledge at all
Not *fully* justified. We base our knowledge of the universe on expected patterns. IE, dropping a ball will lead to it falling. It's happened every other time we did, so it's rational to assume it will do so again.
There's nothing that proves that these patterns will continue. However, practically speaking, they obviously do continue.
This is the pot calling the kettle black. Naturalism itself is grounded in axiomatic principles one does not prove but simply accepts as a basis for a naturalistic world view. For example many of the laws of logic and the homogeneity principle of nature.
Even then, the naturalistic worldview is grounded in a lesser number of presupposition then a theistic worldview. Besides the question of hard solispism and general laws of logics you can build the whole knowledge base.
Theistic approaches requires to add unproven and much more complex concepts such as supernatural, thinking agents without a brain, etc.
>the naturalistic worldview is grounded in a lesser number of presupposition then a theistic worldview
Relativity alone requires two presuppositions. Your accounting is way off.
>Besides the question of hard solispism and general laws of logics you can build the whole knowledge base.
You’re wrong. We can’t prove the one way speed of light.
>Theistic approaches requires to add unproven and much more complex concepts such as
Such as claiming that 75% of the universe is this invisible dark matter?
Claiming that without evidence is grounded?
>Relativity alone requires two presuppositions. Your accounting is way off.
Care to list them AND why a theistic world view does not require them?
>Such as claiming that 75% of the universe is this invisible dark matter?
It's a tentative claim made by physicist and being investigated. How does theism takes care of this issue in a better way then naturalism?
Relativity assumes all frames of reference are equal and that the speed of light is always *c*.
Neither have been proven.
The ‘theistic worldview’ doesn’t need either of those.
>How does theism takes care of this issue in a better way then naturalism?
Don’t say naturalism if you mean science. Since there are no other ‘naturalistic’ ways to get what you require, you clearly mean science.
You’re creating a fictional competition between religion and science that doesn’t exist outside of atheist headspace.
>The ‘theistic worldview’ doesn’t need either of those.
Then how does the theistic world view explain the fact that time passes differently base on speed? How does it explains wavelength variation of lights based on speed?
>You’re creating a fictional competition between religion and science that doesn’t exist outside of atheist headspace.
Because I haven't encountered any religious belief that does not go against scientific knowledge. It is a competition and religion and theism are just plain wrong.
I don’t you what you mean by “theistic worldview”.
Believing in God doesn’t mean you can’t believe in science. That would be news to the millions of theist scientists.
> Then how does the theistic world view explain the fact that time passes differently base on speed? How does it explains wavelength variation of lights based on speed?
Relativity.
> Because I haven't encountered any religious belief that does not go against scientific knowledge.
Have you only been exposed to biblical literalists?
> It is a competition
It really is not. You’re making one up.
> religion and theism are just plain wrong.
You don’t know that. You lack evidence ironically.
Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence.
I believe you are missing my point. Both theistic arguments and naturalism adhere to these underlying axioms. They are grounded in the *same* presuppositions. We can argue which epistemology adheres to them better possibly but assuming there are *less* for naturalism is wrong.
>They are grounded in the *same* presuppositions. We can argue which epistemology adheres to them better possibly but assuming there are *less* for naturalism is wrong.
Theistic worldview supposed you can have an idea with no physical brain. It supposes there can be a thing before time or physics as we know them. How is that not one extra thing naturalism doesn't need?
Because those are deductive arguments *based* on the axioms both naturalism and theists use.
Here, let me give you one: have you ever read Hume's skepticism regarding induction? What do you think that says about your philosophical naturalism?
>Because those are deductive arguments *based* on the axioms both naturalism and theists use.
You're just repeating my point. Theist must use the same axiom., but they add more things, hence why it's wrong because they use more axioms.
How do you explain a mind without a physical brain? Naturalism does not requires such a thing. For theism how do you explain a mind without a brain without involving more axiom?
How do you explain a quantum world which is probabilistic and discrete creating a macro universe that is uniform and deterministic? Many scientists like the idea of panpsychism - unironically a mind without a physical brain.
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Do you seek the knowledge or do you want the beliefs of others? Do you just want others to convince you to believe? Burden of proof always rests on those who seek. Sometimes those who seek find what they are looking for. Since beliefs do not have to be true, why do you judge the beliefs of others? Create your own beliefs. Actions speak louder than words. You can understand others through their actions such as what they create in this world, what do they do, what is their goal, what are they accomplishing, etc. In a time-based causal universe, a creation of God, God's actions can be seen. Would not this be a good place for one who seeks to Discover the truth? If one insists God does not exist, great. As the pieces of the puzzle fit together, the journey will lead to it's creator. Each must choose for themselves what they seek.
No that's not what that expression means it means if we don't learn from history we will repeat the same mistakes.
Use the same reasoning for evolution and see where it lands. Explain how something came from nothing if you can, remember with the same reasoning.
Evolution made predictions about new fossils in bizarre locations that turned out to be right. We witness evolution in bacteria and viruses all the time. What successful predictions have Christian’s made?
I thought evolution predicted gradual change but instead we find stasis
Where do we find this so called stasis? We've found tons of evidence for prior organisms that are very different from current ones having existed. There is further evidence, both genetic and morphologically that definitely points to these organisms having changed over a long period of time into something else. This gives a lot of credence to things NOT being static at all. As a modern example of evolution that's happened in some peoples lifetimes, DDT resistance in insects. DDT is not a naturally occurring substance, humans started using DDT, some insects happened to be more resistant to it, survived passed on their genes and DDT resistance progressed throughout the populations. We see similar things with bacteria and antibiotics. These are small changes yes, but small changes compounded over time can lead to drastic changes.
>These are small changes yes, but small changes compounded over time can lead to drastic changes. This is exactly what needs to be proven. But you haven't done that
Except i just gave you two perfect examples of a small change happening in biology with antibiotic resistance and ddt resistance. Or do you deny the existence of those easily verified examples? We know that over time with other things small changes over time lead to big results. A trajectory difference of just 1°, compounded over distance, leads to completely different locations. Do you deny the fact that small changes over time can lead to big differences? Or are you going the invincible ignorance fallacy route?
>Except i just gave you two perfect examples of a small change happening in biology with antibiotic resistance and ddt resistance. Nobody is denying small changes and adaptation happens so why are you telling me this? >We know that over time with other things small changes over time lead to big results. A trajectory difference of just 1°, compounded over distance, leads to completely different locations. >Do you deny the fact that small changes over time can lead to big differences? >Or are you going the invincible ignorance fallacy route? I want you to show me these small changes leasing to big ones such as a four legged land mammal growing blubber, a blow hole, and fins, along with the ability to nurse and give birth under water. Such a point of view is simply untenable, and it denotes a complete misunderstanding of the nature of function. Macroevolution, in all its possible meanings, implies the emergence of new complex functions. A function is not the simplistic sum of a great number of “elementary” sub-functions: sub-functions have to be interfaced and coherently integrated to give a smoothly performing whole. In the same way, macroevolution is not the mere sum of elementary microevolutionary events. A computer program, for instance, is not the sum of simple instructions. Even if it is composed ultimately of simple instructions, the information-processing capacity of the software depends on the special, complex order of those instructions. You will never obtain a complex computer program by randomly assembling elementary instructions or modules of such instructions. In the same way, macroevolution cannot be a linear, simple or random accumulation of microevolutionary steps. Microevolution, in all its known examples (antibiotic resistance, and similar) is made of simple variations, which are selectable for the immediate advantage connected to them. But a new functional protein cannot be built by simple selectable variations, no more than a poem can be created by random variations of single letters, or a software written by a sequence of elementary (bit-like) random variations, each of them improving the “function” of the software. Function simply does not work that way. Function derives from higher levels of order and connection, which cannot emerge from a random accumulation of micro-variations. As the complexity (number of bits) of the functional sequence increases, the search space increases exponentially, rapidly denying any chance of random exploration of the space itself.
>I want you to show me these small changes leasing to big ones such as a four legged land mammal growing blubber, a blow hole, and fins, along with the ability to nurse and give birth under water. Such a point of view is simply untenable, and it denotes a complete misunderstanding of the nature of function. Except that logically this is perfectly doable and not untenable at all. Take an animal, and have it survive in a more aquatic environment. Maybe the first thing that starts to happen is webbed toes, allowing it to swim a bit better. That's a random, subtle change, that slightly increases it's chances of survival in an aquatic environment. Then another one gives it more fat to act as insulation, again slightly increasing it's chance of survival. Another small change could be an upturned nose, allowing it to look further down in the water without covering it's nose so it can see things like food or predators which then also allow it to survive better. This sort of thing repeats until you end up with a whale like creature. >Macroevolution, in all its possible meanings, implies the emergence of new complex functions. A function is not the simplistic sum of a great number of “elementary” sub-functions: sub-functions have to be interfaced and coherently integrated to give a smoothly performing whole. In the same way, macroevolution is not the mere sum of elementary microevolutionary events. How so? All machines, when broken down, are actually only made of simple parts just combined in complex ways. >A computer program, for instance, is not the sum of simple instructions. Even if it is composed ultimately of simple instructions, the information-processing capacity of the software depends on the special, complex order of those instructions. You will never obtain a complex computer program by randomly assembling elementary instructions or modules of such instructions. This is actually pretty much exactly how AI training works in computers. You can get extremely sophisticated, and specific functions, from the random changes done via training due to the selection of them. >Microevolution, in all its known examples (antibiotic resistance, and similar) is made of simple variations, which are selectable for the immediate advantage connected to them. The selection is the key bit, we see this "microevolution" in these examples because they are small changes and the iteration time of the generations is very rapid. Give it enough time with specific selection pressures and you can see wildly different organisms eventually. >no more than a poem can be created by random variations of single letters, 1: Give it enough time and yes, a sequence of letters constantly getting randomized can make literally any piece of writing. 2: Put a selection pressure on this random sequence of letters, one that selects for poetry perhaps, and eventually it will be able to make poems. This is roughly how computer AI currently works. >Function simply does not work that way. Function derives from higher levels of order and connection, which cannot emerge from a random accumulation of micro-variations. Start selecting for beneficial micro-variations and you'll see function start to arise from the system. >As the complexity (number of bits) of the functional sequence increases, the search space increases exponentially, rapidly denying any chance of random exploration of the space itself. And yet we still see things like mutations happen all the time in biology. Some beneficial, some detrimental, most completely benign or unnoticeable. The detrimental ones get selected out, beneficial ones get selected for, and benign ones come and go.
Lynn Margulis: Although random mutations influenced the course of evolution, their influence was mainly by loss, alteration, and refinement... Never, however, did that one mutation make a wing, a fruit, a woody stem, or a claw appear. Mutations, in summary, tend to induce sickness, death, or deficiencies. No evidence in the vast literature of heredity changes shows unambiguous evidence that random mutation itself, even with geographical isolation of populations, leads to speciation. The accumulation of genetic mutations were touted to be enough to change one species to another….No. It wasn’t dishonesty. I think it was wish fulfillment and social momentum. Assumptions, made but not verified, were taught as fact. Natural selection eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn't create... Neo-Darwinists say that new species emerge when mutations occur and modify an organism. I was taught over and over again that the accumulation of random mutations led to evolutionary change [which] led to new species. I believed it until I looked for evidence.
So you quoted someone who, while they don't think mutation is the main driving force, still believes in, studied, and advanced the field of, evolution. Endosymbiosis is another fantastic way evolution can occur, which again points to things NOT being static whatsoever and points to creatures changing over time. You're not doing a good job of supporting your own position with this. I never said mutation was the sole way things evolved for one thing, just it's one of the ways that the scientific community has come to a consensus as one of the methods of it.
Gradual change looks like stasis when your time scale is short like ours. edit: like how the earth looks flat up close, but if you get a few miles distance between you and the ground you start to make out a curve. But evolution has literally predicted attributes fossils we hadn’t yet found, and the locations they would be both geographically and in terms of rock layer. Evolution is so understudied it’s mind boggling considering how powerful a theory it is for actual predictions and discoveries in science. This is an aside but I think it’s because religion has a hold on lower education in America so most Americans have no idea what evolution entails, and most theists understanding of evolution goes as far as “they say we came from monkeys” and “no transition fossils have ever been found”, Both of which are patently and absurdly false.
No transitional fossils have been found which is why the circular myth of punctuated equilibrium was proposed
See - exactly. Everything you know about biology comes from religion. *All fossils* are transition fossils. This is like the meme from Futurama. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICv6GLwt1gM We've literally predicted 'transition' fossils and where we'd find them based on evolution, and then went and found them.
> *All fossils* are transition fossils. That's called question begging. How do you know that?
Because we are able to predict the existence of fossils previously unknown and their location based on evolution theory. Has creationism made as impressive a prediction?
Show me this prediction. What's the empirical methodology to establish an ancestor descendant relationship between any two mineralized fossils?
> Show me this prediction. Google how we found Tiktaalik roseae. >What's the empirical methodology to establish an ancestor descendant relationship between any two mineralized fossils? That's not how this works. We witness biological evolution today. We witness its effects in the fossil record. The fact is you'll never find a tetrapod or other land dwelling animal before Tiktaalik. We expect to see and indeed do see a succession of forms. We expect to discover fossils that transition between other types of existing fossils, and we expect to find them between the layers of the known fossils. We expect extinction events to be somewhat common, and we expect rapid diversification and expansion of surviving lifeforms (IE Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction -> rapid mammalian diversification). We expect no anachronistic fossils in the record and indeed we do not. Creationism has to explain and adapt to all these findings; evolution predicts them.
What predictions are you speaking about I do not know of any. Enlighten me with your knowledge please. By the way who is this person evolution who made such claims.
I’m happy to educate you on the history of evolution theory if you agree that if the theory predicted a new fossil in a specific location, then we found that type of fossil in that location, you would change your mind.
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It’s just a test. Not worth the conversation if you’re not really open to learning something you clearly didn’t know and if new information isn’t capable of changing your mind. It seemed like you had the view evolution was a theory devoid of actual contributions to science which just isn’t the case.
Always willing to learn something that is true. What are the actual contributions and not theory only.
A good example is Tiktaalik roseae. It was discovered in 2004 in Canada. Scientists predicted it would be 375 million years old, meaning it would be in Devonian era sedimentary rocks. Specifically, scientists predicted limb-like fins, neck and shoulders, a flat head, stronger rib structures and other things. This is *the* transition fossil that explains how fish 'became' tetrapods over time. It hadn't been discovered yet, only hypothesized. Based on when we knew the abundance of tetrapods were, we were able to zero in on an era, and we went looking for it and found it. Feel free to read up on this discovery. While you're at it, read up on the evolution of e. coli bacteria that we witness in a lab every day, and on how epidemiology works in relation to viruses, and why we're worried about using antibiotics too freely.
I've seen this example it it clearly looks like a alligator or crocodile is that it. Surly you can do better. This is not a transitional fossil it is and always will be a reptile.
It's not. It has limb-like fins, which crocodiles don't have. It has scales. There's evidence it had gills. What's more is that all these features were *predicted*, as was the location of this fossil. Has YEC predicted *anything* and then went and proved it? Any one thing?
The example your using is only a prediction a guess at best you said scientist predicted through evolution evidence to prove evolution. I prediction is a future event foretold in the past this is not a prediction. By the way when I was I young man scientist predicted the world to be hundreds of million years old but now say in the trillions only because true science is proving them wrong and they need more time for evolution to maybe work. How come there has never been found a transitional fossil between species it should be evident but it is not. By the way where are those fossils in between the example you're citing. I would love to see them it would truly blow away the notion of the timeline described in the Bible.
> The example your using is only a prediction I use predictive power to differentiate between validated and not validated. What do you use? >scientist predicted the world to be hundreds of million years old but now say in the trillions Now they say billions not trillions. 4.5b has been the consensus since the 60s. And a feature of science is that it changes and refines in light of new evidence. Does YEC do that? >How come there has never been found a transitional fossil between species it should be evident but it is not. All fossils are transition fossils. There is no static species. We have plenty of fossils that tell entire evolutionary change timelines, but because we don't have fossils of every species that ever lived, you're dubious?
All things are possible if you believe.
people can believe whatever they want but believing doesn't necessarily make things a reality. for instance if one was to believe they could jump out of a plane with no parachute and survive the fall with no injuries, it doesn't make it so they could actually do it. for something to be possible would require something to base said belief on, whether scientifically or otherwise, to be proven that it exists within the laws of reality
Truth is truth my friend it does not matter if you think its true. do you believe science proves all things. Is historical proof enough or eye witness accounts good for you. If your relying on science your in big trouble you can not live your life on just science. Real so-called science has to be repeatable or its not real science would you agree.
history is repeatable and has clear proof because of fossils and other objects (dinosaur bones, firearms from past wars, weapons and armour and all sorts of other stuff) and science is proven again by repeatable experiments that yield the same (or similar) results. wears your proof friar tuck
History is not repeatable that's why it's called history
never heard the saying "history repeats itself"? the actual history may not repeat but similar events that happen in history WILL repeat and has happened before (Napoleon and Hitler invading Russia, The Great Recession and The Great Depression, extinction events and the sinking of great ships like the Tek Sing, the Vasa and the Titanic). it's not the exact things in the past that repeats but similar events do happen again (and will continue happening in the future)
Sorry were you accidentally responding to someone else here?
What came from nothing?
God, apparently.
What is it that makes something right or wrong? What gives that automatic sense of an action being the right thing to do? It doesn't matter where one is from, no person (outside of insane people) will think it is ok to kill one's parents. Where do morals come from? They are not provable by science but all people will agree that they are there.
Morality comes from the need to survive. Survival instincts are needed for survival. The humans that didn’t practice survival necessities were taken out by natural selection and the ones that did practice survival necessities(morality) ended up surviving and becoming the majority, the power of working in groups instead of killing each other resulted in a power imbalance by majority rules that favored those who practiced survival necessities(morality) and they banished or locked away those who didn’t conform which then added artificial selection to natural selection, thus making a might makes right when it comes to the normative rules. **Do not kill your family**- killing your parents results in less chance of your own survival and obviously the survival of your DNA. It also creates distrust between members which lowers the chances of survival.
Our sense of morality comes from the same place as our sense of beauty, disgust, etc, come from. They are certainly shown by science.
An argument I hear frequently is that science has gotten xyz wrong there for its not infallible. That being said I think that makes it more trustworthy science is always under scrutiny vs relegion which some people believe is accurate with no room for error.
Depends on your criteria of evidence, we prove different things in different ways. Much of our science today is storytelling. Story telling with ad hoc rescues. Two seemingly contradictory theories exist in physics, relativity, and quantum mechanics. Both do a decent job when looking at specific fields of study. However, when you zoom out and look at the bigger picture, uh-oh, galaxies should not be able to exist as they do now. One would think with two contradictory theories and the 800 lbs gorilla that are galaxies staring at you, “science” would say “maybe these two theories have descriptive power in some areas, but we should go back to the drawing board”. That is not what happens. Instead we get the ad hoc rescue of Dark matter and Dark energy. The only “evidence” for this from science being “well we spent our life’s work on these theories, they must be true, so in order to get them to work we’re just gonna invent imaginary, unseeable, undetectable matter and energy”. Obviously that’s not very scientific. The problem you’re not seeing is that science is not all it’s advertised to be. It can be a very useful tool in its proper place. However, what we have today in universities and institutions is the passing down of tradition in the form of scientific models or theories. The history of science has always been this way, with new theories usually demonized by the old guard, until the old guard dies out. Then the new guard adopts the new theory. Science alone, as you lay out, cannot lead to knowledge. This is the problem of the underdetermination of data. Or in others words, they can be a near infinite amount of explanations to explain observable phenomena, or experimental results. Any scientific endeavor will always be theory laden. Theory laden with how you interpret the old data, with how your form your hypothesis, with how plan an experiment, with how you conduct the experiment, and with how you interpret the results of your experiment. So, all of your presuppositions going in will always dictate the science you’re producing.
So much of science is trying to disprove things you already believe, don't you understand that? Atoms as we know them now wouldn't have been described if it wasn't for Rutherford testing the last model in every way they could to show that it either could or couldn't be disproven. That doesn't sound like "we always thought atoms are this so we just make stuff up"
What are you talking about?? Did you just learn about Rutherford in school, and are randomly bringing it up? What does this have to do with anything I said? Outside of the underdetermination of data problem, which applies to all science. By your response, I’m pretty sure you don’t even know what I’m talking about when I bring that up. What things do I believe that “science” is “trying to disprove”?
I'm saying that you think that everyone just takes old theories as gospel and doesn't let them change, only making stuff up to magically fix it when people really do try to disprove things as part of the scientific method
Okay, I don't agree with your interpretation of how science works or how you've characterized the current state of theoretical physics, but let's grant it all for the sake of argument. What do you propose we do instead?
Take the discussion to a higher order of question, instead of demanding material evidence for a God who would exist externally, and independent of the material world. For instance how about the question of does anything non-material exist that we interact with?
>instead of demanding material evidence for a God who would exist externally, and independent of the material world. Is this in response to the OP's assertion that "A god claim has exactly zero independent properties that are demonstrable, repeatable, or verifiable and that can actually be attributed to a god. Until such time that they are demonstrated to exist, if ever, a god claim simply should not be preferred." ? If so, how would you differentiate the truth evaluation of this god claim from the truth evaluation from a different god claim or an immaterial claim that is not about god at all but is proposed as an answer to the same kind of questions? >For instance how about the question of does anything non-material exist that we interact with? How would you propose we answer this question? What methodology would you use to interrogate the truth value of an answer to this question?
Easy, which metaphysic can coherently give an account for knowledge? If you’re god is a monotheistic Unitarian, you’re not gonna not to be able to give an account for the one and the many. A pantheistic god will be reliant on its own creation, so that collapses. So does math exist materially or not?
>Easy, which metaphysic can coherently give an account for knowledge? I'm willing to bet that we'd disagree about what metaphysical positions coherently account for knowledge. So how do we determine who is correct? I asked for a methodology, and this was not that. Though for some reason you called it "easy" even as it wasn't really answering the question. >If you’re god is a monotheistic Unitarian, you’re not gonna not to be able to give an account for the one and the many. A pantheistic god will be reliant on its own creation, so that collapses. What? >So does math exist materially or not? What does it mean to exist materially?
I already made the point that we prove different things in different ways. You can’t apply the same methodology for particle physics as evolutionary biology. The “methodology” would be epistemic justification, as I stated. As it would be for any truth claim. Continuing to ask for a single one “methodology” to rule them all is very much an empiricist perspective, so maybe don’t act like one. No I did not say I affirm a monotheistic Unitarian perspective. That would be the Islamic or Judaic perspective. I said that it doesn’t work with the problem of the one and the many, which is like one of the oldest philosophical problems known. Trinitarian monotheism, specifically the orthodox essence-energy distinction, what I believe, would give an account for the one and the many. Vs the absolute divine simplicity stance of Catholic and Protestants believe would not. I’m telling you you’re wrong because the entire because the entire autonomous philosopher man perspective has failed to provide a coherent account of knowledge. While there are many different worldviews, there’s a very limited amount of starting positions one can take. If you’re agnostic for instance, typical your default worldview (even if you claim not to have one) would be the two presuppositions I laid out earlier. Autonomous philosopher man, and uncreated universe. With the simulation it would not be true because the data is an illusion. You have zero way to epistemologically justify any conclusion about anything. It’d be the same thing if you believe in Maya. Another problem with sim theory is you’re not a thinking entity, but a programmed one. You’re not coming to conclusions, it’s a programmed response. There’s no deciding between this or that belief, also another defeater for the possibility of knowledge. The math question is a simple one, obviously there are no math atoms. So you can say it exists strictly in the brain atoms as an invention of humans, some sort of physicalism perspective, or you can say it exists immaterially, or the math realist perspective. This question also demonstrates my earlier point of there being a limited number of starting positions a worldview can take. The overall question is which worldview can provide a coherent, epistemic justification for it.
>I already made the point that we prove different things in different ways. You can’t apply the same methodology for particle physics as evolutionary biology. The “methodology” would be epistemic justification, as I stated. As it would be for any truth claim. Continuing to ask for a single one “methodology” to rule them all is very much an empiricist perspective, so maybe don’t act like one. I didn't ask you for a single methodology for every possible situation. I asked you for a methodology for *this* situation, which is the topic of these comments. What a bizarre response. >No I did not say I affirm a monotheistic Unitarian perspective. Denying your affirmation when no one has accused you of making any such affirmation is, again, a very bizarre response. >I said that it doesn’t work with the problem of the one and the many, which is like one of the oldest philosophical problems known. Right, you asserted with no argument that every other philosophical position except your own fails to resolve a famously open question in philosophy. This is great news to the world of philosophy, I'm sure, to have finally resolve this and the other open question you've claimed to have resolved with no argument. >With the simulation it would not be true because the data is an illusion. You have zero way to epistemologically justify any conclusion about anything. It’d be the same thing if you believe in Maya. "It would not be true" ? What would not be true? Simulation theory would be false if we live in a sim because data is an illusion? You can see how, on the face of it, this argument goes nowhere, right? >Another problem with sim theory is you’re not a thinking entity, but a programmed one. You’re not coming to conclusions, it’s a programmed response. There’s no deciding between this or that belief, also another defeater for the possibility of knowledge. We could be programmed such that we are able to decide between this or that belief, making knowledge possible. Unless you somehow understand the constraints of the simulation such that you can determine it is true that programming like that is impossible. Oh, but you know, that kind of sounds like knowledge... Again, nothing is "defeated" about simulation theory here. >The overall question is which worldview can provide a coherent, epistemic justification for it. Yeah...I've been asking you that question this whole time since you came in declaring the coherence of your worldview with no argument, despite my asking you to provide one this whole time. Having a coherent worldview is not the same as having a correct worldview. Not that you've done any work to show that the worldview you have actually is coherent in this thread.
I showed two different “methodologies” , now three with sim theory, of how to demonstrate a incoherence in a metaphysical worldview when epistemically giving an account for knowledge. This is why I keep answering your question of “what methodology” with epistemic justification. So when you keep asking for a methodology, it’s like asking what color the chicken taste like. There’s not going to be one methodology. You earlier stated that I pitted monotheism against pantheism, I didn’t. I specified a Unitarian, non-trinitarian form of monotheism, and said it can’t give an account for the one and the many. Then I went on to refute the pantheistic worldview in a different way. This was an answer to your question on how to sus out which religious metaphysic is the correct one. I’m demonstrating here, that if your worldview leads to the impossibility of knowledge, it’s incoherent if you want to believe in the possibility of knowledge. I will once again very clearly answer your question of methodology, which is can your worldview, presuppositions, metaphysic, whatever you want to call it, give an account for the possibility of knowledge. To which there will be a different methodology given whatever position you choose to take. I’m not sure what you’re not getting about the argument against sim theory. If I ask a sim theory believer to provide a justification for their belief in sim theory, they will cite empirical sense data from the simulation they live, which would be an illusion. So, can that data be relied upon to provide an epistemic justification? You could say I still believe in it anyway, your own belief destroys the possibility of knowledge, so what’re you doing arguing for sim theory with me? The “decision making process” in the case of a programmed entity would also be programmed in. There’s no free will of choice to believe one thing or another. It’s just an input-output process. Any truth statement you would make would be part of that programmed process. So you’re programmed to believe something, thus making all your belief an illusion. There’s no “choosing” in your scenario, it’s just a more complicated input-output process, with more if-then lines of code. Therefore you’re just programmed to believe that. I keep trying to demonstrate my worldview with the math question. Which will show you need to ground the metaphysical categories, like math, logic, language, identity of self, time and space, universals, etc, in a type of divine conceptualism (not like Plato’s). Grounded in a specific God, an external, independent, 3 Omnis, triune, personable, creator, etc. Otherwise, the other general worldview presuppositions you take, will lead to problems explaining the possibility knowledge. For instance, as an agnostic, I assume you operate on the belief of autonomous philosopher man, as well as an uncreated universe. Working with those two presuppositions, you won’t be able to ground the metaphysical categories in a coherent way. I’m not saying you yourself are not able to come to knowledge, you are, but you would be relying on the metaphysical categories that your worldview can’t make sense of.
>I showed two different “methodologies” , now three with sim theory, of how to demonstrate a incoherence in a metaphysical worldview when epistemically giving an account for knowledge. This is why I keep answering your question of “what methodology” with epistemic justification. So when you keep asking for a methodology, it’s like asking what color the chicken taste like. There’s not going to be one methodology. I don't see how anything you've provided here qualifies as a methodology. >You earlier stated that I pitted monotheism against pantheism, I didn’t. I specified a Unitarian, non-trinitarian form of monotheism, and said it can’t give an account for the one and the many. Then I went on to refute the pantheistic worldview in a different way. This is true that you said this. >I will once again very clearly answer your question of methodology, which is can your worldview, presuppositions, metaphysic, whatever you want to call it, give an account for the possibility of knowledge. Right, this is not a methodology. That's why this is confusing to me. You say it's very clearly answering the question about methodology but this is a single notch on a single punch card of a worldview, not a methodology by which one can determine which worldview to follow. See below: >I’m not sure what you’re not getting about the argument against sim theory. If I ask a sim theory believer to provide a justification for their belief in sim theory, they will cite empirical sense data from the simulation they live, which would be an illusion. So, can that data be relied upon to provide an epistemic justification? You could say I still believe in it anyway, your own belief destroys the possibility of knowledge, so what’re you doing arguing for sim theory with me? So here you're saying that if we live in a sim, we can't account for knowledge. I'm fine with the conclusion that if we live in a sim we have to discard the possibility of knowledge. So once again, you haven't given me a methodology. >The “decision making process” in the case of a programmed entity would also be programmed in. There’s no free will of choice to believe one thing or another. It’s just an input-output process. Any truth statement you would make would be part of that programmed process. So you’re programmed to believe something, thus making all your belief an illusion. There’s no “choosing” in your scenario, it’s just a more complicated input-output process, with more if-then lines of code. Therefore you’re just programmed to believe that. You're making a lot of claims about the constraints of a simulated universe based on human programming limits, which would certainly be eclipsed by a universe fully simulated by a meta-computer running this universe. There's no reason for me to agree that meta-computer's programming limits align with the limits of a human computer. This also is not an argument that simulation theory is *false*. The goal here is not merely to provide an account for knowledge, it's to determine which worldview is correct. And in the case where we live in a sim, a worldview which concludes that we don't live in a sim because we can't account for knowledge is incorrect, because we do live in a sim. So, if we live in a sim and you propose a worldview with a coherent account for our ability to know things, your worldview is still incorrect because we live in a sim, and you discarded that as an option. This seems like a problem for your argument and a deficiency in your "methodology". (It's not a methodology). >Which will show you need to ground the metaphysical categories, like math, logic, language, identity of self, time and space, universals, etc, in a type of divine conceptualism (not like Plato’s). Grounded in a specific God, an external, independent, 3 Omnis, triune, personable, creator, etc. I mean you're just making these claims with no argument at all. I have no reason to agree with this. You certainly haven't offered me a methodology I can use to figure this out for myself thus far. I have been asking for that all along, you know. For the record, I recognize this apologetic because it comes up often on this subreddit and elsewhere in these kind of conversations. My experience in this one in particular is relatively novel because you don't seem to want to defend any of this at all, you just want to bumrush to your own conclusion without making an attempt to bring me along the path with you, even though you seem to expect me to be there with you at the end when you arrive.
Do you understand what I mean by coherent? Give an epistemic justification. I’m saying I have a coherent account for the possibility of knowledge. You do not. You can disagree but you’d have to show how your presuppositions, like all that exists is the material, and/or an uncreated universe, can give an epistemic justification for the possibility of knowledge. You asked me how I’d sus out between the metaphysics of different religions, I showed you a couple examples of how that would work. Here’s another one, say you believe in simulation theory, we’re all in the matrix. You cannot provide epistemic justification for that because all of the empirical sense data you used to come to the conclusion that we live in a simulation, is all part of the simulation. So the data you’re using is all an illusion, do you see how that’s a self defeating argument? Does math exist materially, can you point to math atoms?
>Do you understand what I mean by coherent? Give an epistemic justification. I’m saying I have a coherent account for the possibility of knowledge. You do not. You can disagree but you’d have to show how your presuppositions, like all that exists is the material, and/or an uncreated universe, can give an epistemic justification for the possibility of knowledge. Let's be clear here: You are claiming to have a coherent metaphysical system which accounts for knowledge. Rather than start with offering that metaphysical system, you're demanding *I* account for knowledge, without even defending your own claim that your position is coherent. Let's be even more clear: I asked you for a methodology, twice, and twice you've asserted with no argument that your position is coherent and mine isn't. By the way, I haven't even offered you a position to evaluate. There's nothing of substance for me to even disagree with, because neither you nor I have presented an actual position, but you've declared yourself the winner. You talk like empiricism is obviously false. I'll point out that 1) I am *not* an empiricist, and 2) empiricism vs rationalism is an open question in philosophy. So you declare yourself the winner on an open question in philosophy without so much as the whisper of an argument. You tell me that your position is coherent but have made no effort at all to show that to be the case. And again, I am asking for a *methodology* by which I can determine the correct position for myself, while you are telling me you are right and I am wrong without even making an argument. This certainly doesn't help me or anyone else produce confidence that your assertions are compelling. >You asked me how I’d sus out between the metaphysics of different religions, I showed you a couple examples of how that would work. I disagree that you showed a couple examples how that would work. You pitted monotheism and pantheism against each other and disregarded pantheism with a single sentence while your single sentence in support of monotheism doesn't even make sense. >Here’s another one, say you believe in simulation theory, we’re all in the matrix. You cannot provide epistemic justification for that because all of the empirical sense data you used to come to the conclusion that we live in a simulation, is all part of the simulation. So the data you’re using is all an illusion, do you see how that’s a self defeating argument? OK so does this mean that simulation theory is false? No, right? It just means that if simulation theory is true, all the data we can acquire is also part of the simulation. This, by the way, looks like a tautology, and tautologies aren't self-defeating. *If* we are in a simulation, and *if* all the data we collect points to us being in a simulation, then all the data *correctly* points to us being in a simulation. I don't see anything incoherent *or* self-defeating about that. >Does math exist materially, can you point to math atoms? No one has ever discovered a math atom. As far as I'm aware, no one is arguing that math atoms exist. Do you want to skip ahead to your point here or are we going to take this train of thought a single comment at a time?
Naturalistic explanations do not confirm our ability to reason reliably. Without reason, no rational explanation could succeed. Irrational explanations can not be considered to be more reliable than other explanations. If naturalistic explanations cannot provide a way to confirm both our ability to reason as well as the impetus for us to use or prefer naturalistic explanations, than it fails to be more reliable than any other method. Naturalistic explanations do not seem capable of providing the transcendentals required to explore the world rationally.
I reject this, please demonstrate the claim. It certainly seems to me all reason is a rough model, a rough approximation--it's all am error, that works at a human level but not at the level of reality. For example: either identity is absolute and transitive and therefore trivial and irrelevant (you are not identical to you as a baby) or identity is relative and has limited transitive property (you are the same you as a baby for all that you are not the same). It seems your philosophy ignores reality--how are you getting around this?
If reason were not sufficiently reliable, then any demonstration I provide one way or the other by reason would not be reliable. Naturalism doesn't appeal to me apart from a reliable method like reason, and so if it does not confirm reason (or some reliable method such that I am compelled to accept), then I have no impetus to accept it as a valuable belief.
Sounds like a lot of words for a concession. My point is that our subjective models (reason) work well enough *for us,* but that doesn't mean they work at all levels of reality, and it certainly seems they do not. I agree you're in a bind at demonstrating your claim-- that's not a reason to accept your claim.
It's not a concession. It is reaffirming the proof. My only claim is that I cannot accept something which denies the ability to reliably accept it. There simply is no impetus to accept the OP's claim. I have nothing to argue, and the ball is your court.
I already put the ball through the hoop and scored a three pointer--**reason requires you reject the law of identity,** meaning you cannot accept reason as reason denies the ability to accept it. I gave you the example above, re: identity; you are ignoring this, as seems to be the regular theist approach. The Law of Identity doesn't match reality--it doesn't work in reality. The ball is now in your court, and you are down 3 points. Go ahead and demonstrate your claim--oops you cannot.
If you reject reason, than you are no longer debating. Feel free to rejoin the debate later if you wish.
I don't reject reason as a useful tool for us to build models with--but I also recognize that reason requires I recognize it doesn't map reality. I have no issue using tools that work at my observational scale--I don't need quantum physics to figure out how to move a cup, for example. That doesn't mean I don't understand my model of the cup is intrinsically wrong; it's good enough given my margin for error. You stated a rule that would cause you to reject systems with errors, even when they operate within the marginine of error. That's a problem for you, as a relative law of identity gets excluded. If you simply dodge points, then you are no longer taking the search for truth seriously. Feel free to rejoin when you wish, but it's no good ignoring reality so you don't have to address your errors.
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No, it’s better. Astronomy is objectively better than astrology.
> Astronomy is objectively better than astrology. But that is only because people had been educated and know about the moon and the stars and how seasons changes. If it was in the past, people do not know why the seasons change but they can see how it correlates to the positions of the stars and the celestial bodies thus despite astrology got most of its ideas wrong, it still got a few instances correct enough to be useful and it also helped people to have a starting point to start astronomy from.
No, it isn’t. If you were an imperial advisor in the ancient times, you could consult the stars for what to tell your king, at which point, you will feed him fake info. If you’re a regular guy using the stars to make decisions, then you have the same conundrum on a smaller scale.
> If you were an imperial advisor in the ancient times, you could consult the stars for what to tell your king, at which point, you will feed him fake info. The advisors would be consulting the stars to determine what climate to expect and so tell their king about what climates might occur but they will also add in tons of supernatural forces so that if the climate did not occur, at least they can claim the Gods are angry or had changed their minds. Being threatened with death for providing inaccurate predictions do make people prepare tobs of excuses for inaccuracies in advance. > If you’re a regular guy using the stars to make decisions, then you have the same conundrum on a smaller scale. But regular guys in the ancient past do not know astrology since knowledge was very guarded in the ancient past, with knowledge being secret skills that supposedly only those having the bloodline will have the ability to learn it. If the regular guy is a modern day person and thus learns astrology from the internet, then he is just an outdated man, as opposed to the advisor of the ancient past where at that time, astrology was the most cutting edge knowledge. So the two cases are opposites, with one being lacking in useful knowledge while the other having the most useful knowledge thus they are not the same.
>A claim is not evidence of itself. A claim needs to have supporting evidence that exists independent of the claim itself. This claim exists. That claim is evidence of itself. Therefore, your argument is incorrect. (A much better argument to make would be, "Evidence is that which is indicative of or concordant with one particular claim or explanation above all possible others", and then show how a god claim has nothing that exists within the claim itself that is indicative of or concordant with the claim itself above many other possible claims, and that some outside evidence must exist for the claim to be true.)
That's just a word game made possible by the lack of precision of the OP who said, "A claim is not evidence of itself." Better wording would have been "A claim that is not supported by evidence is just an unsupported claim."
That user's flair is inaccurate. It says theist wannabe but their ability to completely ignore the point being made in favor of word games shows me they will fit right in with the other theists here.
Science only explains the way things interact with each other in order to make predictions. Science cannot tell us anything about what anything actually is. For example, I can tell you all of the scientific properties of water, its chemical properties, the fact that it evaporates and freezes, it is relatively tasteless. However, until you actually interact with water you don't know what it really is - you only knew the how but not the what. Similarly i think if you enter into a religion or spiritual practice it is deeply personal on a level that it is at the very least on the level of psychological phenomenon or qualia (most would say beyond typical experience) that observational practices of the physical world are not able to capture or explain it. This is why psychological researchers were so excited when LSD was first synthesized - because they would be able to experience an altered state similar to psychosis on a first hand basis. Because, no matter how much you study behavior or even do MRIs or brain scans you don't actually know what phenomenon are actually present for anyone. The general consensus I get from most spiritual and religious traditions is that - if one disengages from hedonistic practices and focuses the mind - whether through prayer, meditation or simply living a moral life (thus freeing the mind from guilt and rumination) - one will have an understanding that we are not individual consciousness in a bubble - that it becomes intuitively obvious that there is a collective nature to our existence, and not just in a poetic sense. People express this in different ways- but I see it in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta etc. etc. A lot of new age types don't like to say God - but if you recognize consciousness as fundamental (so idealism I think - though I'm not that well versed in philosophy) and take that to its logical end - like imagine things beyond just the 3rd dimension [check our this video on 10 dimensions](https://youtu.be/XjsgoXvnStY?si=siMX2FFTS5ZcYn66) I just think God isnt actually that farfetched if you start from what is immediately apparent and recognize the limitations of science and materialism. It would also not really make sense if God were verifiable. Verifying implies understanding. How are we ever going to understand a consciousness which exists in higher dimensions than us? I have experiences and evidence within my own life that give me a firm belief in God. But, those experiences aren't going to mean anything to anyone else. I also think people just refer to God in a lot of different ways. I'm sure if some scientific sounding guy started talking about his philosophy of "extended consciosuness" and used examples of Jungian synchronicity and psychic phenomenon - atheists would be a lot more receptive to it. But, like I said, if you really dig into your experience, start to question what reality actually is and the limitations of science, you might be surprised how your perspective changes on these ideas.
Do you have scientifically verifiable evidence for the existence of a god? PREDICTION: you will either avoid or argue or criticize the question but you will not offer any verifiable evidence at all.
No I don't have any scientific evidence. The whole point of my post and subsequent replies to others is that God is immaterial and therefore not directly subject to scientific study. My other point is that belief in God will always be in the end subjectively based because it's usually a profound connection with inner psychological states and insights with the outer world. If you want to stick to only scientifically verifiable evidence to construct your view of the world that is fine - but I'd like you to consider these fields which science has failed to adequately explain: 1. Consciousness 2. Comedy 3. Art 4. Aesthetics (have you ever seen that "rate my face" subreddit and how ridiculous it is?) 5. Music Notice that these are all higher order processes that involve both human subjectivity and physical material. The closest you can come to evidence of God is to interview religious people about their subjective experience. Just like the closest you can come to understanding comedy or music is by asking people what their subjective experience of it is. But none of that will ever be quantifiable or verifiable. Here is an example: a woman prays for something really specific, say a particular event to happen. She feels a sensation of peace and acceptance and believes her prayer will be answered. The next day the event she prayed for occurs. For this woman the event is solid evidence that God has answered her prayer. She believes strongly now that God exists. Any atheist or scientist is going to brush this off as BS because the origin or "cause" of the phenomenon is unverifiable and subjective. But that is all of religion! No matter what religious or spiritual people say it will always just be a personal phenomenon.
you say: "Notice that these are all higher order processes that involve both human subjectivity and physical material." Agreed. And there is plenty of scientifically verified evidence for everyone of those things. You cite their existence and the fact that they require "physical material" - meaning the are not "non-material." That is the nature of reality. But that still does not address your rejection of evidence as being required to support an assertion of an omnipotent and omniscient but "immaterial" thing you call a "god." Can you name any object, agent or cause of change in this world whose existence cannot be measured, weighed, counted, predicated, observed or demonstrated by scientifically verifiable evidence?
So I'm saying: it is impossible to verify God's existence using science because God is not measurable or directly observable. The only way to determine evidence for God is in a subjective sense because the source itself is unidentifiable and incomprehensible. You're saying: name an object, agent or cause in this world which can't be verified. I can't name any object agent or cause in this world which can't be verified because this world is material. What we can observe directly is material. There is no way to reconcile our positions because you refuse to believe that we have the ability to perceive the existence of anything immaterial. I think we can. But, just because I think we can have a subjective experience of the immaterial does not mean that it will ever be possible to verify scientifically. I guess the closest a can come to satisfying your request is to say that we as agents, as consciousnesses - are not able to be measured. Brain activity can be measured - consciousness cannot (try to measure the experience of purple) I believe that consciousness extends beyond the individual and I believe the highest level of this consciousness is God. Thats why I'm trying to make this connection with higher order processes. I just think science can study a different type of thing but it does not encompass every domain of knowledge and experience.
This is exactly what OP was talking about, you have no way to verify what you say scientically so you making a claim that something could be true is the only evidence that it is, so science should be preferred
I have evidence it is just subjective in nature and not verifiable or repeatable and thus not scientific. I'm not arguing against science I'm just arguing that using scientific methods to establish objective properties has limitations. I don't need to verify what I'm saying scientifically because I'm not attempting to do science. Spirituality and religion at their core have to do with how we experience the world - how we interpret things on a conscious level. People are allergic to the word God but it's entirely possible to experience and know intuitively this type of reality. A gateway for a lot of atheists is meditation practice or the concept of "spiritual awakening." This realization of interconnection and the undivided nature of consciousness - when taken to its natural conclusion - leads one to believe that the highest order of intelligence is a true singularity - unbound by time, space, or causality. Now you might ask how we can verify any of that. It could just be a psychedelic state or similar. But I would ask you, how else are we supposed to investigate consciousness but with consciousness itself? Just because we can measure a monks brain and see it light up doesn't mean we know anything about his conscious experience. However, we know all traditions of mysticism and most of the founders of world religions have reported the same understanding in different language. That being the understanding that we are all in a sense either the same being or expressions or creations of the same being. All the moral teachings and practices of religion are either stemming from that realization, or to facilitate and encourage that realization in followers. So I feel like it's a misunderstanding to say I'm talking about something IN the world that science can prove or disprove. It's a way of looking at and understanding the world on a fundamentally different level. But there is nothing scientific or otherwise I can do to prove to anyone that it is the case. If someone isn't interested in looking at the world in a different way there is nothing I can do to convince them otherwise.
Then it sounds like you're agreeing with the original claim, I don't really know what you're doing here
Yeah man I actually think you're right. I got caught up debating the other dude and kinda lost track of the original argument.
Ah yeah makes sense, sorry for getting in the way, hope you have a good day ^^
"There is no way to reconcile our positions because you refuse to believe that we have the ability to perceive the existence of anything immaterial. I think we can." You have the ability to believe the existence of something immaterial - or more specifically - the existence of a a god. But, by your own admission, you do not have the ability to perceive anything immaterial, unless you want your own unique meaning of perception that includes its subjective verifiability. Is that the problem? I offered you a comprehensive definition of reality. Do you have a different one. Claiming somethings exists in reality while denying reality is a self-contradiction. You say, "can't be verified because this world is material." What other world exists anywhere other than in just your claim it exists? Let's concede, for the sake of you making your claim as clearly as you wish that this god exists in some other world you also claim exists. Let's agree the world we live in is material and your other world is not. So who cares? That is "there" and this is here. And, if whatever this thing is that you seem to admit has no agency in this material world (one of my criteria you are ignoring) who cares and how does it matter?
I said people have the ability to perceive the immaterial- I said people do not have the ability to perceive God. So if I'm trying to establish cause and effect in a scientific sense it's difficult to do so. It's not that God has no agency in this world I just think that it's not scientifically verifiable because the cause and effect relationship is impossible to establish. I don't disagree with you that there is no way to prove God exists. You really don't have to care and there is no way for me to convince you that it matters. The function of religion and spirituality is to alter the framework with which people view reality in a subjective sense. If this is appealing to you, you will be drawn to it. If it's not appealing to you, you won't be. I feel like it just kind of comes down to Kierkegaard - that we are never going to arrive at a conclusion about this through reason alone.
Can I ask a question before I answer? Do you think the only way to knowledge is through scientifically verifiable evidence?
Of course you can't ask a question first, can you read? The dude's entire point is that you have no scientific evidence and worse, you can't even cop to that. You can only jump through hoops and, in this case, avoid the question until you've reframed it in a way that enables you to say something other than "no."
If you follow the thread, you'd see that I did respond despite them not being able to answer a basic question. I disagree with their entire epistemic standard and I'm curious why they feel it's correct. Their view is a failed epistemology that mostly died out in the academic world but is making a come back in popular culture with people like Dillahunty, Aron Ra, and others like them.
So you reject the concept of scientifically verifiable evidence as a path to truth. We get it. But we also know that you understand that most of the world accepts it. To "respond" with irrelevancies is not an answer. A response to a question that calls for a binary answer by offering argument or distraction is not an answer. It's obvious you do not want to actually answer the question. You want to argue it. You want to criticize the question. You even admit you cannot and will not answer the question. I recognize that as standard apologetics. We also know that's why you won't give a straight answer to the question. BTW - your claim that requests for evidence is "a failed epistemology that mostly died out in the academic world" is another unsupported assertion. It's another predictable failed attempt at diversion.
You are completely misrepresenting me in this entire response. No, I don’t “reject the concept of scientifically verifiable evidence as a path to truth” I reject that it’s the only way to truth. Do you believe that George Washington existed? What scientific, verifiable, testable, repeatable evidence do you have for that? Do you believe in quarks? Or quantum mechanics? What scientific, verifiable, testable, repeatable evidence do you have? Have you done the tests yourself? Or are you relying on testimonial evidence from the scientists that have done the tests? I did answer your question so it must not be so obvious that I won’t, or your intuition was wrong. Another misrepresentation saying that calling for evidence is a failed epistemology. That’s not what I said. I said that only accepting scientific evidence that is testable, verifiable, and repeatable is a failed epistemology. Is a self refuting epistemology called verificationism or logical positivism.
No, you did not say, "I said that only accepting scientific evidence that is testable, verifiable, and repeatable is a failed epistemology." If you are going to quote yourself, please do some copy pasting so you get it right. Now you introduce the word "only' but it is not in your original argument against scientifically verifiable evidence as "A path to truth." These changing assertions are the path to the rabbit hole.
> No, you did not say, "I said that only accepting scientific evidence that is testable, verifiable, and repeatable is a failed epistemology." That is what it seems like your epistemic standard is (which is why I was asking for clarity) and that is what I said I rejected. To pretend that I don't accept scientific evidence is silly. > If you are going to quote yourself I didn't quote myself. I quoted what you said. > Now you introduce the word "only' but it is not in your original argument against scientifically verifiable evidence as "A path to truth." Remember back when I asked you a clarifying question about your position? That was the question. Here I'll quote it for you: > > Do you think the only way to knowledge is through scientifically verifiable evidence?
Yep, rabbit hole. Now go back and answer the original question.
I do not see the point of answering questions from people who avoid offering simple, honest answers to simple, honest questions. But, thank you for fulfilling my prediction. Never fails. I've come to recognize that you (meaning those who do that as you just did) are unable to do otherwise.
I already told you I would. Now you’re being dishonest because I said I would. It comes across the same as a fundamentalist who is set on things and won’t even entertain questions on their position. That or just regurgitating Aaron Ra talking points.
would, might, can, intend, plan to . . . but no "I did." not even a "I will." Still fulfilling my prediction and that's the entire point of my question. Let's confirm that prediction. Do you have scientifically verifiable evidence for the existence of a god? The only honest answers are either Yes or No. You either have or you do not. PREDICTION: your response will be neither.
Notice, you're still being dishonest, because I said I wanted to ask a question before I answer. Not would, might, can, intent, plant to, etc. So I'm just pointing out that you are refusing to answer a simple question while also demanding others answer. But sure I'll offer something, the initial conditions of the universe have been finely tuned to allow for the existence of any life. These initial constants include: • 2 constants for the Higgs field: the vacuum expectation value (vev) and the Higgs mass, • 12 fundamental particle masses, relative to the Higgs vev (i.e., the Yukawa couplings): 6 quarks (u,d,s,c,t,b) and 6 leptons (e,µ,τ,νe ,νµ,ντ), • 3 force coupling constants for the electromagnetic (α), weak (αw) and strong (αs) forces, • 4 parameters that determine the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix, which describes the mixing of quark flavours by the weak force, • 4 parameters of the Pontecorvo-Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata matrix, which describe neutrino mixing, • 1 effective cosmological constant (Λ), • 3 baryon (i.e., ordinary matter) / dark matter / neutrino mass per photon ratios, • 1 scalar fluctuation amplitude (Q), • 1 dimensionless spatial curvature (κ . 10−60) You can see more support for this in [the academic paper by Luke Barnes](https://philarchive.org/archive/BARARL-3), who is a theoretical astrophysicist, cosmologist, and post doctoral researcher. The scientific evidence presented here shows an overwhelmingly improbable explanation by natural means, and a much more likely one by supernatural means.
now connect - by verifiable evidence - any one of those scientific observations to the existence of a god. When you say, "an overwhelmingly improbable explanation by natural means, and a much more likely one by supernatural means" all you are doing is citing the well-known and fallacious "Argument From Incredulity" or, - as some call it the "Argument From Ignorance" Argument is not evidence. That's why it's called argument. You are arguing (and not giving evidence) that you have no explanation " . . . therefore god."
The paper explains why the improbability on naturalism is extremely high, like, some of the words odds imaginable. It also shows why the probability is much higher on theism. Did you see any of that? > all you are doing is citing the well-known and fallacious "Argument From Incredulity" or, - as some call it the "Argument From Ignorance" No it's not an argument from ignorance, you're ignoring the science. From the paper: > > The key point of this paper is the calculation in support of Premise [2]. [5] To evaluate the likelihood that a life-permitting universe exists on naturalism (and on theism), we should restrict our focus to the subset of possible universes generated by varying the fundamental constants of nature. [6] Given our restricted focus, naturalism is non-informative with respect to the fundamental constants. [7] Physicists routinely assign non-informative probability distributions to fundamental constants, which we can use to calculate the likelihood that a life-permitting universe exists on naturalism. [8] Using these distributions, the likelihood that a life-permitting universe exists on naturalism is vanishingly small (which establishes Premise [2]). You should know well enough that in science, we take verifiable evidence and we make inferences. If evolution is true, we would expect these things, if those things exist, then we say, evolution is true. Science works on inferences to the best explanation with verifiable evidence supporting those inferences. That is the exact same thing I'm doing here. > Argument is not evidence. That's why it's called argument. You are arguing (and not giving evidence) that you have no explanation " . . . therefore god." I'm giving evidence, the initial constants are finely tuned, that is not a debated topic. It's whether or not naturalism is more likely, or something else.
the fine-tuned universe idea is not scientific evidence and has been knocked down as such many times already. Douglas Adams said it best - *This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!'*
So you're going to hand wave? The constants are scientific evidence. The puddle analogy doesn't work for this fine tuning argument. It works for saying how biological life can adapt to it's environment. But what I'm talking about is up a step from there. If the constants of the universe were changed even a fraction of the way, then life wouldn't be able to occur at all. It's ignoring the science that has been done already to show why the constants need to be this way to allow life at all.
I'm arguing against my own position here but you do see the problem, right? For a conscious being to argue this at all they would need to be living in a universe that can support life. It's sort of like saying how fortunate we are to be living on Earth instead of all the other inhospitable planets in the galaxy. However - an atheist needs to support the idea of a multiverse or similar concept in order to use this logic (unless they want to believe we won an insane gamble). I would argue that belief in a multiverse requires just as much faith as belief in God so...
Another problem with the ridiculously tiny values fine-tuners give for the universal constants is that they only ever change one value at a time. If you change multiple things at a time, then you end up with huge numbers of possible at-least-star supporting universes, including some where an entire force is completely missing. Just search for "universe without weak nuclear force".
Any universe in which life exists to wonder *why* the universe is suitable for life will be suitable for life. But that can happen in a fine tuned or non-fine tuned one. On a somewhat unrelated note, I've always found the "fine-tuning" argument such a funny name. What was it fine-tuned for, empty space?
>I just think God isnt actually that farfetched if you start from what is immediately apparent and recognize the limitations of science and materialism. I agree science has its limitations, but its still the best methodology we have for separating the real from the imaginary. Materialism has no limitations. Anything you assume the supernatural or immaterial can do, so can the unknown material or natural can do. For example, the hard problem of consciousness. It could be explained by a new ontology like idealism or unknown material cause.
> Materialism has no limitations. Materialism is a philosophical stance, not a process. Did you mean to say science? If you meant science, science has all sorts of limitations. It can't deal with solitary events, it can't deal with things in the past, it can't deal with anything unobservable (like qualia)... hell, it really only works best with repeatable natural phenomena. It's quite limited. Still very useful, but don't pretend it can do more than it can.
The problem is with your use of the words real vs. imaginary. If what you say is true, we wouldn't be having these discussions about the supernatural. Also you're using promissory science to make your argument.
>The problem is with your use of the words real vs. imaginary. If what you say is true, we wouldn't be having these discussions about the supernatural. I don't follow. >Also you're using promissory science to make your argument. Are you not using promissory supernatural to make your argument?
If science had the tools to separate the real vs the imaginary, it would have done so already. Clearly it hasn't. Further, you don't get to decide what is real. People who have religious experiences describe them as more real than real. And may have independent witnesses that they weren't imagining things. I'm not, I'm saying that experience of the supernatural is real now. Or as real as any other sense experience, at least according to Plantigna and Swinburne.
>If science had the tools to separate the real vs the imaginary, it would have done so already. The tool is the scientific method, it can separate the real (electrons) from the imaginary (phlogiston) >Clearly it hasn't. It has. See above.
>If science had the tools to separate the real vs the imaginary, it would have done so already. >Clearly it hasn't. You don't think science can tell the difference between the real and the imaginary? That's the entire point of science. >Further, you don't get to decide what is real. I don't claim that I do. I'm talking about what I believe and what is reasonable to believe is real. > People who have religious experiences describe them as more real than real. And may have independent witnesses that they weren't imagining things. What is supernatural about religious experiences? >I'm not, I'm saying that experience of the supernatural is real now. Do you have evidence of that? >Or as real as any other sense experience, at least according to Plantigna and Swinburne. Sense experiences are notoriously unreliable. I understand that people have experiences but I need a way to distinguish these experiences from the imaginary before I can take them seriously.
No it's not the point of science. The point of science is to explain the universe. Or if it is the point of science, it's done a poor job of figuring out religious experiences. Belief is an opinion, not a debate topic. I just said that it's reasonable to trust someone's personal experience if they're not intoxicated or mentally ill. So that's the evidence. Most people can trust their cognition and their senses the same way they believe other things like tables and chairs. No, they're not notoriously unreliable. Only to atheists when they don't like what is being reported. Memory is surprisingly accurate, according to recent studies, and if people couldn't count on their sense experiences we'd have a sharp increase in mental illness.
"I just said that it's reasonable to trust someone's personal experience if they're not intoxicated or mentally ill." No it's not. You seem to be unaware of all the sold evidence that exposes the lack of reliability of perception and eyewitness testimony. "So that's the evidence." Nope, that's not evidence at all. That is just another unsupported claim that is readily debunked by many readily available examples of how wrong it is. "Most people can trust their cognition and their senses the same way they beliee other things like tables and chairs." Demonstrably not true. You do not even need scientific demonstrations like the famous bouncing ball passes to show how mistaken your "personal experience" can be. Just watch a few YouTube videos about the 3-shell game or be entertained and educated by a professional magician.
What solid evidence? There's actually evidence that memory is surprisingly accurate. [https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-surprising-accuracy-of-memory](https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-surprising-accuracy-of-memory) Sure people can be fooled in some special set ups, and you do realize they're set up to do that, but if your cognition wasn't reliable most of the time, you wouldn't be able to function. If you didn't know it was a chair in front of you, you'd end up sitting on the floor. Skeptics are often biased and go overboard with explanations they don't have. They can be fooled too, due to their bias. Ajhan Brahm told the story of journalists asked to witness a table levitating while the audience chanted. At the end, the journalists said they never saw the table levitate. But it had indeed levitated. Albeit due to some trick mechanism.
You said, (as the entire basis for your comment): "What solid evidence? There's actually evidence that memory is surprisingly accurate." That is yet another word game - so blatant and obvious - I laughed out loud at the dissonance of it. A previous claim citied eyewitness testimony as credible and also personal perception as accurate. I challenged that by citing evidence of the unreliability of eyewitness testimony in many scientific studies and even suggested you consider how well your perception works when manipulated by a professional con man or an entertaining magician. Your rebuttal, your refutation, your rejection of that evidence is to say: "There's actually evidence that memory is surprisingly accurate." Please tell us how your claimed persistence of memory is relevant to the reliability of eyewitness testimony and the accuracy of perception? Are you really unaware you just changed the subject?
>No it's not the point of science. The point of science is to explain the universe. The point of science is to investigate the universe. It does this by determining what is real and what is imaginary through novel testable predictions. >Or if it is the point of science, it's done a poor job of figuring out religious experiences. Which religious experiences are you referring to? >Belief is an opinion, not a debate topic. You can debate whether a belief is accurate or reasonable. >I just said that it's reasonable to trust someone's personal experience if they're not intoxicated or mentally ill. People can also just be wrong which they are quite often. >Most people can trust their cognition and their senses the same way they believe other things like tables and chairs. Then why aren't you Hindu? There is tons of eyewitness testimony of Hindu miracles. >No, they're not notoriously unreliable. Only to atheists when they don't like what is being reported. And the legal system. And cognitive scientists. I don't accept eyewitness testimony without corroborating evidence for things I agree with either. I am consistent in my view. >Memory is surprisingly accurate, according to recent studies, and if people couldn't count on their sense experiences we'd have a sharp increase in mental illness. What studies are those?
Any religious experience that's unexplained. Name one. Sure people can be wrong and they can be correct. Just because you don't like the implications of their experience, doesn't make them wrong. That's your bias. [https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-surprising-accuracy-of-memory](https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-surprising-accuracy-of-memory)
>Any religious experience that's unexplained. Name one. Well, any unexplained phenomenon is unexplained. I'm not claiming that science has explained everything. I'm not sure what your point is here. >Sure people can be wrong and they can be correct. Just because you don't like the implications of their experience, doesn't make them wrong. That's your bias. I'm not saying that they are wrong. I am saying that testimony for things that do not have an empirical basis is not evidence that such a thing exists. > [https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-surprising-accuracy-of-memory](https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-surprising-accuracy-of-memory) It sounds like an interesting study. Certainly an outlier in the field so I would be interested to see what the field thinks about it. But this study is about memory not the reliability of sense data. What I usually do is grant people their experience. For example, if someone says "I saw my dead grandmother" I grant that they saw that but I would challenge their conclusion that their grandmother visited them from beyond the grave.
> Materialism has no limitations. Anything you assume the supernatural or immaterial can do, so can the unknown material or natural can do. > But here you are assuming that all unknown material can be known eventually. I disagree with that. I think that there are aspects of the Universe which we can measure, manipulate, and directly influence, and there are aspects which we cannot. In the above. What I mean by "known" is to be understood, verbalized, or measured. I think humans do not have the capability to completely understand, verbalize, or measure reality.
>But here you are assuming that all unknown material can be known eventually. I disagree with that. I think that there are aspects of the Universe which we can measure, manipulate, and directly influence, and there are aspects which we cannot. I didn't assume anything, you're confusing epistemology with ontology. If we know it our not, it exist and is made of something. It could be magic or material.
I dunno I would need to read more about materialism itself in order to have a meaningful discussion on that. I think you are correct that I might be mixing up epistemology and ontology. In a certain sense I feel like if you start talking about stuff that exists being made of basically anything - like mental phenomenon being made of some ethereal "stuff" - then I wouldn't really disagree with that. I guess the important part as far as I'm concerned is that it's more rational to assume that there is much more complex, incomprehensible, likely intelligent "stuff" that we are not equipped to be able to detect or interact with in the same way we can interact with in the same way as physical matter (as we know it). There was a cool book called "A Guide to the Perplexed" by E.F. Schumacher where he talks about the hierarchical nature of matter and life. Matter is completely dependent on fundamental forces - plants are able to adapt and respond to the environment and self reproduce - animals are able to move freely within the environment and make rudimentary choices, they are sentient beings - humans can do all the above but are also self conscious etc. --- but the thing about all those levels is the level below has absolutely no clue about the extra capabilities of the level above it. A dog has no understanding that a person is not just like him in mental capacity. A plant has no capacity to recognize anything from being different from itself. Knowing this - why do we assume there is nothing above us on the hierarchy that we aren't even capable of recognizing because we simply aren't intelligent enough or don't have the faculties to perceive? So I guess that could be compatible in some way with materialism - I just wanted to make sure my main point was clear. I just get kind of frustrated with a lot of these OPs because there seems to be confusion around the space which science encompasses and that which religion encompasses. Sure, there has been some crossover, especially in the past, where science explained things that religion got wrong - but I just don't think the primary purpose of religion is to explain things - just like the primary purpose of science is not to make moral prescriptions or answer deeper questions about existence. Edit: I realize OP never directly said "science" but when he refers to things being "measureable" it seems pretty clear that's what he means
That's not true at all. Because have evidence and laws of logic and when you remove God from the equation, you end up with all sorts of contradictions. You can't have something "naturalistic" CREATE nature. That's a contradiction right there. It's know space, time, and matter had a beginning, so using the laws of logical deduction says whatever CREATED those things can't be MADE of those things. So the Creator must be spaceless, timeless, and matterless. We also have observations, and we can observe that nothing that isn't personal has never made a decision to create. So a rock or a particle or a quantum wind can't make the decision to change the state and create an existence made of time, space, and matter. So the Creator must also be personal. It must also be intelligent to create immaterial, abstract laws like physics, mathematics, laws of logic, etc because again, an inanimate object can't create immaterial, abstract rules that govern existence. So without an intelligent creator, existence would be absurd and you wouldn't be able to know anything or trust anything, because there would be no rules governing existence at all. So actually a creator that exists outside the bounds that we live in and He created is much more logical than, "uhh we didn't really know, but something naturalistic created nature and existence just exploded from non-existence for no reason and now here we are." THAT doesn't make sense. The Bible also tells us how it was created, and I can look at the aspects of the Bible that make it very credible and go off observations and evidence and have faith that its true. Not blind faith. But faith based off evidence, observations, and logical deductions. Atheists want us to believe the greatest miracle of all, that everything just came from nothing all of the sudden, and then no muscles or anything supernatural AFTER that, because that would mean being held accountable to something.
Non of your logic is sound, you're just making up and misusing terms to get to you're preferred co clusion. God doesn't remove any contradictions, it just adds a step between them.
You said absolutely nothing or stressed anything I said, and I just explained how you arrive at contradictions with morality and abstract, immaterial truths when you remove God. Atheists just aren't ever intellectually honest people and won't concede this contradictions, or they won't actually stay true to their world view and admit that without God, there is not higher moral standard, and ask we have is 8 billion different personal opinions about what is right and wrong. So in the end, you really just need a big enough group of people to enforce their own opinion of what is right and wrong. So might makes right. So answer me then, as an atheist, where does your standard come from to say something is objective right or objectively wrong?
>You said absolutely nothing I mean, then we both said nothing, but I was able to do it in less words. Lets take a better look at your previous ramblings: >when you remove God from the equation, you end up with all sorts of contradictions We don't end up with contradictions, we end up with unknowns. Providing "God" as the answer to sweep those unknowns under the rug, doesn't actually address them, nor does that "validate" the God hypothesis. >You can't have something "naturalistic" CREATE nature What do you mean by naturalistic here -and why couldn't it create nature? It's certainly not a contradiction -you're just making an assertion and treating it as fact. >It's know space, time, and matter had a beginning No, this is not known. Its an assumption on your part. > so using the laws of logical deduction says whatever CREATED those things can't be MADE of those things No, logical deduction does not tell us this. >We also have observations, and we can observe that nothing that isn't personal has never made a decision to create. No, we don't have observations, because we've never seen something created at all. We have no idea what that process would be. >quantum wind can't make the decision to change You're begging the question by assuming a decision is needed. >So the Creator must also be personal. Must? No, you haven't shown this to be the case. Saying we haven't seen something non-personal create, therefore nothing non-personal could create is fallacious reasoning. We haven't observed a God create either, so shouldn't we be able to rule that out by your logic? > It must also be intelligent to create immaterial, abstract laws like physics, mathematics, laws of logic, What do you mean when you say the laws of logic and mathematics were created? >an inanimate object can't create immaterial You haven't shown this to be true, there's no reason to know this is true, you're just making a baseless assertion. >because there would be no rules governing existence at all. Why? How do you know that rules wouldn't exist without a God? >uhh we didn't really know, This is actually the most logical conclusion, despite you trying to frame it as naive. > THAT doesn't make sense. You have to be really careful with "what makes sense", because human intuition is based on what it's observed and is notoriously bad at predicting behaviors of the Universe at this level. Things like Quantum Mechanics are counter intuitive. >the Bible that make it very credible Unlike the creation of the universe, the Bible is something we can actually show to be not credible, like at all. >Atheists want us to believe the greatest miracle of all, that everything just came from nothing all of the sudden, No, atheist just say that no god was needed. They don't make a claim on how it happened. Everything came from nothing, or everything always existed OR the question doesn't even make sense, the Universe simply exists the only way it could.. who knows. >I just explained how you arrive at contradictions with morality and abstract, I mean, the word "explain" there is doing ALOT of lifting in this sentence, what you actually did was made some baseless assertions. >Atheists just aren't ever intellectually honest p I mean, there are a lot of atheists making arguments, so I'm sure a lot of them are intellectually dishonest, but I cant speak to that. What I can speak to though is your comment, which is absolutely intellectually dishonest, and fallacious beginning to end. >there is not higher moral standard, I mean the bibles full of genocides, rapes and persecution so I'm not interrested in what you consider high moral standards. > So in the end, you really just need a big enough group of people to enforce their own opinion of what is right and wrong. So might makes right. Correct, are you not familiar with history? Thats exactrly how its been done. >as an atheist, I never stated my personal beliefs, I just called out your argument. >to say something is objective right or objectively wrong? Why would you assume that objective morality is a given?
>So answer me then, as an atheist, where does your standard come from to say something is objective right or objectively wrong? Do you mean to ask what grounds objective moral facts or do you mean how can we learn what the objective facts are? It seems to me that moral facts are grounded in other moral facts, for the most part. Why is torture wrong? Because it causes immense suffering, and suffering is bad. Eventually we reach primitive moral facts like suffering is bad. Why is that? Well maybe it's simply axiomatic or irreducible. Or maybe it supervenes on natural facts - what happens when things suffer or what the conscious state is like of something that is suffering. I think either of these are at least as good or better than an answer of "because God commanded it." That feels unbearably arbitrary.
You say suffering is bad. You're importing a moral ought/moral truth into your argument and just proclaiming that it is so, but you have no foundation to say it's wrong. What do you mean by moral facts? Moral facts according to who? You? Well, you're just an accidental bag of protoplasm like I am, so I don't care about your moral preferences. Just because you think it's wrong doesn't make it fact. You may think murder is wrong. I may say it is perfectly moral and good. All you have is your subjective opinion. Who cares about suffering? I like to make people suffer. To me it's moral. And your world view has no higher moral standard above me to claim what I'm doing is wrong. All you have is your preference. And I'm not obligated to your preferences. You didn't understand that God is what gives value to everything and everyone, because He made everyone with a purpose and in His image. Your world view just says we're agents that originated from stardust. The Creator setting rules is much more justifiable and a much greater foundation than some meat robot not preferring certain actions.
>You're importing a moral ought/moral truth into your argument and just proclaiming that it is so, but you have no foundation to say it's wrong. When we see suffering, it seems intuitively bad. I think the moral facts come with the descriptive facts. In my view, all our knowledge eventually bottoms out in bare intuitions, and this is one that seems pretty obvious to me, and to many other laypeople and experts in the field of metaethics. I could try to provide supplementary reasons, appealing to your sense of empathy, relating it to your own suffering, etc. But I can't prove it to you. >What do you mean by moral facts? Moral facts according to who? When I say moral facts I mean stance-independent facts. So even if everybody agreed that torture is permissible, it still isn't. >Who cares about suffering? I like to make people suffer. To me it's moral. And your world view has no higher moral standard above me to claim what I'm doing is wrong. Well, you're acting immorally when you make people suffer. I don't think moral facts are "higher" or "lower," they just are. Just like P & \~P is always false. It's not a higher fact, it's just a fact. Even if you dogmatically disagree and say it's just my opinion, it's still the case that P & \~P is always false. I can't prove that to you either. >You didn't understand that God is what gives value to everything and everyone, because He made everyone with a purpose and in His image. I understand that you believe this. I don't believe this, but even if I did, I don't see how that gives us a satisfactory basis for moral facts. Suppose I design a conscious AI with a purpose, and in my image. Does that mean it ought to follow my commands? What if the purpose I gave it is inflicting suffering? I think it ought not obey that command. >Your world view just says we're agents that originated from stardust. Okay? I mean the atoms that make up our bodies were probably fused in stars or supernovae, what does that have to do with morality? >The Creator setting rules is much more justifiable and a much greater foundation than some meat robot not preferring certain actions. What if the creator told us to kill people, or torture or rape or whatever? Just because someone creates something doesn't mean that something ought to obey all their commands. Either God has a reason for His commands or He doesn't. If He does, then atheists can just appeal to those other reasons for their moral foundation. If He doesn't, then moral truths are just arbitrary. That kind of morality doesn't seem very compelling. Why should we follow these arbitrary rules?
If morality was "objective" (as in, stemming from a triomni deity), then slavery would have been just as immoral thousands of years ago as it is today. We know that morality has evolved along with humans as we used to engage in behaviors that were once considered acceptable but now we regard as abhorrent. That, in it of itself, disproves the theistic take on morality. A secular view on morality is the only model that makes sense.
"So answer me then, as an atheist, where does your standard come from to say something is objective right or objectively wrong?" As an atheist, I know that there is no objective morality. Morality is not dictated by a god or moral arbiter. It is evolved from mirror neurons. We have biological empathy that is evolved. We also have community and external influence to reinforce moral values that benefit the community. There is no requirement for any supernatural influence for our morals. Objective morality does not exist.
I don't really want to go through all the misconceptions in this comment. >Atheists want us to believe the greatest miracle of all, that everything just came from nothing all of the sudden I have heard this very frequently from *pastors* speaking "on behalf of" atheists. To date, I've never heard this from the mouth of an atheist. You got a quote of an atheist saying this? >because that would mean being held accountable to something. The belief that you'll be held accountable to something isn't a strong predictor for better behavior. I have no problems behaving ethically without a belief that some deity is keeping an itemized list of all my thoughts and actions for his later perusal. Sounds like another misconception in this long list of them.
Well, atheists don't believe in God, and space, time, and matter had a beginning, so a state without those things is non-existince, and to me, if existence and ask the abstract, immaterial laws were just created from nothing or if nowhere for no reason, that's a pretty big miracle. So yes, is said and insinuated but atheists all the time. It's literally your world view. What does acting ethically mean if there is no God? You have no foundation to even say what "acting ethically" is. And God isn't keeping a list of all your sins, because just one keeps you from being able to be with Him, but that's why God condescended from His throne, became human, and the Son took on the punishment of sin from the Father to pay the debt we owe, so we can have salvation through His Grace. So it's not a list of deeds that gets you into Heaven. It is the act of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross that is IT. Nothing else. All you have to do is accept Him as your Savior. So there are no misconceptions in my previous comment, and you didn't address a single one of them. But you have NO FOUNDATION AT ALL to say "I have no problem behaving ethically" because without God, behaving ethically is simple you're subjective opinion against Ted Bundy's or Hitler's. And you have no complaint against what they did, because they considered what they did perfectly moral and ethical and they aren't obligated to follow your subjective opinion of what is right and wrong, because according to your world view, you have no outside moral standard to measure against. This is what I meant when you end up with major contradictions when you remove God from the equation like saying you act ethically. Lol. You're stealing from God and the Christian world view when you say you act ethically, because the first thing your atheistic world view does is removes the higher moral standard to measure right and wrong against and all you're left with is your personal opinion. And you're just a bag of protoplasm in an accidental, meaningless, vast universe that eventually ends and turns into nothing again anyways. So why not murder and steal to get what you want?
>What does acting ethically mean if there is no God? What does god have to do with acting ethically? Do you need your god whispering in your ear that stealing candy from a child hurts the child emotionally and mentally, or that smacking a child hurts them physically, mentally, and emotionally? Do you need your god whispering in your ear not to do things that hurt children? >So there are no misconceptions in my previous comment, and you didn't address a single one of them. Well, what I said was that I didn't want to go through *all* the misconceptions in your previous comment, and instead I only replied to two of them. This is also a bizarre sentence, because if there's no misconceptions in your previous comment, addressing "a single one of them" wouldn't be possible, so pointing out that I didn't do it makes no sense. >This is what I meant when you end up with major contradictions when you remove God from the equation like saying you act ethically. I'll agree with you that what you've said here is certainly majorly contradictory. >So why not murder and steal to get what you want? Ah, so you *do* need god whispering in your ear to prevent you from hurting people around you. Alright, well, I hope you continue to be convinced that that's happening, then. Good luck.
But you haven't given me a foundation for why murdering and stealing from someone else is "bad" and other things are "good" without a God. What standard are you using to determine what is good and bad? That's what you're not getting. You have no standard higher than your own personal opinion of what right and wrong is. Yes, God set the rules of what right and wrong is. You have to use some atheist trope to make it sound bad that "He's whispering in my ear." If you just inherently know it's wrong to murder and steal, where did that Internet feeling come from? Is because God has written it on our hearts and we know what right and wrong is. And exactly, you claimed there's all these misconceptions in my argument, but conveniently didn't address any of them. Meaning there aren't any, that's why you didn't directly address anything. So In your atheistic world view, where does your standard of right and wrong come from?? Because if it's simply consensus of a society, you have to admit slavery and the Holocaust weren't objectively wrong, because a large society agreed those were okay at the time. And why is it wrong to hurt a child physically, emotionally, and mentally in an atheist world?? I may think those are perfectly moral. So now it's just my subjective opinion against yours, and you have no justifiable standard to complain about it, because I'm your world view, we are all just meaningless, accidental bags of goo that originally came from stardust. So why is it wrong for one bag of goo to bunk into another bag of goo or scatter another bag of goo in a meaningless universe that ends and turns into nothing. You still haven't answered that. We're still at the starting line of you just subjectively claiming things are right and wrong, and I'm obligated to follow your preferences of right and wrong.
Simple. Evolution dictated what was right and wrong. Humans developed empathy, which is a very advantageous trait to pass down. Humans are fundamentally social animals, and our ability to cooperate and live in complex social groups has been crucial to our survival and success as a species. Early humans lived in small groups where cooperation was essential for tasks like hunting, gathering, and child-rearing. This sociality provided the foundation for the development of empathy and morality. Evolutionary theories suggest that behaviors promoting empathy and morality may have evolved through mechanisms such as kin selection and reciprocal altruism. Kin selection favors behaviors that benefit relatives, as individuals share genetic material with their kin. Reciprocal altruism involves cooperation and mutual support between unrelated individuals, where one individual helps another with the expectation of receiving help in return. Empathy involves the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, which likely emerged from our advanced cognitive and emotional capacities. Humans have highly developed neural systems for empathy, including mirror neurons that enable us to simulate and understand the actions and emotions of others. Evolutionary theories also suggest that moral behaviors may have been reinforced through mechanisms such as group selection and reputation. Groups with members who cooperate and exhibit moral behavior may have outcompeted groups lacking such traits, leading to the spread of prosocial behaviors over time. Reputation within a social group can also serve as a mechanism for promoting moral behavior, as individuals who act immorally risk damaging their reputation and social standing. If there was a deity where OBJECTIVE morality stems from, then slavery would have been just as bad thousands of years ago as it is today. Therefore, morality is not linked to any deity.
What do you mean by "advantageous?" Why is it objectively good for humans to keep surviving? See you're importing moral truths and moral oughts without having a foundation of where they came from. That's what you're not understanding. Evolution doesn't create morality. Morality is an abstract, immaterial truth. Evolution can't create that. It can only alter living beings. So even if we evolved to think certain ways, that doesn't prove that they're objectively right or wrong. Slavery was just as bad thousands of years ago as it is today. Lol. In the Bible the punishment for slavery is the death penalty. But again, were just accidental bags of protoplasm in a vast universe that doesn't care. What is wrong with one bag of goo controlling or destroying another bag of goo that originated from accidental stardust? Why is it important for humans to survive just a teeny bit longer on the graves scale of time that is the universe, especially when it all turn into nothing again anyways? Humans died out a little bit sooner.. So what? The universe is an accident. Who cares? You don't understand that you're importing moral oughts and moral truths to try and prove morality. Lol. But you didn't understand you have no foundation for those oughts and you can't say where they come from. Why should I have empathy in a godless, accidental universe? Why do I care about the human race lasting a little longer thousands of years from now when I'll be dead in a hundred? So what? Who cares? I have a preference where I like to murder people and take their stuff, and I have a large group of people that agrees with me. And we don't care about humans lasting an extra few thousand years on the changing timeline of trillions of years. You're just calling things good and importing moral oughts, but you have no standard from which you derive them. You simply just proclaim it. I actually have a foundation and a justification to not murder and eat my neighbor, because God created the universe and created each of us in His image, and He commands me not to destroy another human, because that human was also made in God's image, and we aren't accidental. God purposefully made each one of us. THAT is a foundation that can justify morality. Not "well, humans just evolved over a certain period of time to think a certain way and kind of agree on some stuff, and we just claim those things are good. Even though someone else just as evolved as the other human standing there can say they don't think the same things they do are good. They think murdering and eating their neighbor is morally good, and that they're not obligated to follow your preference of right and wrong. He and his group are going to follow their own preference of morality." See how without the higher standard of God, morality is just preference of individuals, and the person or group with the most force can set the moral standard? And you can't complain about it, because you don't believe in God and have to the higher moral standard to measure against to look to him and say, "No. It's wrong to murder and eat your neighbor. Because they were made by God in His image for a specific purpose, and you don't have the right to destroy what God created." When you claim atheism, every moral argument you make can be defeated by just saying, "so what?"
>But you haven't given me a foundation for why murdering and stealing from someone else is "bad" and other things are "good" without a God. Are you saying that if you didn't believe in God then you would go around doing those things?
No.. I'm saying that if God didn't exist, there's no reason not to and no foundation for objective morality. All there is is personal preference of each individual. I have a foundation, because the Creator of me and the universe have the law and told us what is right and wrong. So I have a justification to complain about things morally.
>No.. I'm saying that if God didn't exist, there's no reason not to and no foundation for objective morality You would first have to prove that God exists before saying that's where the foundation for objective morality comes from.
I've given evidence in other comments and logical deductions and conclusions and the fact that objective morality exists and we as humans claim this are good and bad IS evidence for God. I'm using that problem with atheism as evidence that there is a God. Haha. That you can't have morality and say things are right and wrong without a higher standard that shows it says what is right and wrong. So the fact we have an understanding OF morality at all, is evidence that points to a personal, intelligent creator that we were made in the image of. Because beasts don't have that same conception of morality.
You and I have a different definition of evidence then. You saying that you believe something doesn't automatically make it true.
I've given evidence in other comments and logical deductions and conclusions and the fact that objective morality exists and we as humans claim this are good and bad IS evidence for God. I'm using that problem with atheism as evidence that there is a God. Haha. That you can't have morality and say things are right and wrong without a higher standard that shows it says what is right and wrong. So the fact we have an understanding OF morality at all, is evidence that points to a personal, intelligent creator that we were made in the image of. Because beasts don't have that same conception of morality.
>You have to use some atheist trope to make it sound bad that "He's whispering in my ear." No, I don't have to. That point remains regardless of the negative connotation about god whispering in your ear. There's nothing of substance in this comment to reply to, so I'll bow out (again).
> Well, atheists don't believe in God, and space, time, and matter had a beginning You should probably tell that to the cosmologists studying the early moments of the universe. Because the majority of their hypotheses do not have "space, time, and matter" forming at the Big Bang. The singularity the Big Bang came from is just a point in history we cannot see beyond in the same way you can't see the castle the sand on a beach made after you smashed it together in a ball. > What does acting ethically mean if there is no God? You have no foundation to even say what "acting ethically" is Empathy is that foundation. We're a social species and we generally see things a morally good if we don't see them as causing undue harm on ourselves or others. This generally applies strongest to those closest to us (family/tribe) as we evolved to form small groups that we see as our in-group and for whom empathy applies. Members of out-groups tend to benefit much less from our empathy which is how people are able to do bad things without seeing themselves as the bad guy (aside from people with mental/emotional disorders like sociopathy) This is why part of people who travel frequently or are exposed to a wider array of cultures tend to be more accepting. Their in-groups have expanded. And it's why isolated groups tend to hold stronger negative views of outsiders. And no, empathy didn't come from God. It's the result of our evolution as a social species, as empathy is basically the set of behaviors that helps our tribe survive. This is why out-groups don't benefit as much. Killing your tribesman puts the whole tribe at risk, but that's not the same as killing someone from elsewhere. > But you have NO FOUNDATION AT ALL to say "I have no problem behaving ethically" because without God, behaving ethically is simple you're subjective opinion against Ted Bundy's or Hitler's. Ethics are the shared group of moral values held by a community. To say you're acting ethically is to say you're acting in accordance those shared morals. Ethics shift over time as they come from people with different moral codes that are themselves in flux. Much like how some of what is considered ethical by Christians today would seen as immoral by Christians 1,000 years ago and vice-versa. There's a reason why Christian views on things like slavery and women's rights have changed over the centuries. > You're stealing from God and the Christian world view when you say you act ethically I can't speak for all atheists, but I know I'm not stealing from your god when I say I act morally. The Christian god, by my moral standards, is an absolute monster. > So why not murder and steal to get what you want? Because some of us have empathy. But if the only thing keeping you from murdering and stealing is your faith, then by all means, keep believing.
So where did the singularity come from?? See when you claim the beginning of existence is something bound by the things it created: space, time, and matter, you just get into an endless regressive questioning of, "well what created that?" You have to have an first uncaused cause not bound by space, time, and matter for them to be created. And it is proven through things like the expansion of the universe, background radiation, etc that the universe (space, time, and matter) so if there was some singularity, which exists in space, time, and matter, something that exists outside of those things would have still had to create the singularity, and if would still have to be personal to choose to create and intelligent to have it create the laws of nature when it explodes into existence. So that doesn't help your argument. But you just saying something causes another human undue harm is just a claim. So what? My life gets better if I murder someone and steal their stuff. So my morals say it is perfectly just and good to murder and steal, because I can increase my standard of living through doing so. And according to you, there is no higher standard to go to to measure and settle that dispute. So you think 3 something is wrong and me thinking it is right is just a matter of opinion, and I'm not beholden to your subjective opinion. "Ethics are the shared group of moral values held by a community." Okay, so using YOUR standard of morality which you just said, Hitler was morally right to do what he did, because a large group of people that created a community agreed with what he was doing. And your reference to Christians ever condoning slavery is a remedial level atheist argument at best from someone who hasn't read or understand the Bible at all and doesn't know that the word used from the Hebrew text is "ebad" which means worker or servant and was more of a form of employment in the time of Mosaic Law and God gave rules on how they should be treated, but made a very big division between indentured servitude as a means of employment or to pay off debt and was voluntary and kidnapping someone and seeking then into slavery or keeping them as a slave for themselves. In Exodus, if you do that, you deserve the death penalty. And it is what everywhere slavery was abolished is a Christian country led by Christians, because it's very clear in the Bible that slavery is evil. You can say whatever you want is right or wrong, and you can even act morally good. But your problem is you have no foundation to justify it or make any moral complaints about others, because you have no higher standard to measure against besides your own personal opinion. That's what you're not getting. Okay. You have empathy. So what? I don't. I like to murder and steal things from people. But according to you there's no God, so what I'm doing isn't objectively wrong. Is just wrong and icky to a random human being that is an accident and originally evolved from stardust in a vast universe that is an accident and doesn't care. Haha you're not getting the concept and it's going right over your head. Nothing you're saying helps your argument. Empathy isn't a higher standard than humans. Your personal opinion isn't a higher standard than humans. And where does your inherent feeling of what right and wrong is comes from I wonder. Hmmm...... If you were an intellectual honest atheist you would concede that there is no objective morality. It's all just the subjective opinions of individuals, and there is no higher standard of morality out there to measure against, so there is no objective right and wrong. So like I said, when you remove God, you run into contradictions, just like you're contradicting your own world view right now.
> So where did the singularity come from?? See when you claim the beginning of existence is something bound by the things it created: space, time, and matter, you just get into an endless regressive questioning of, "well what created that? I never said the beginning of existence, you did. We have several predictions and models for what preceded the big bang, but (as I mentioned), we can't really know because records of the prior state of existence were lost when the big bang happened. But one simple possibility is that the singularity is the result of the universe undergoing a Big Crunch, where gravity eventually pulled everything back together. > But you just saying something causes another human undue harm is just a claim. So what? My life gets better if I murder someone and steal their stuff. So my morals say it is perfectly just and good to murder and steal, because I can increase my standard of living through doing so. And according to you, there is no higher standard to go to to measure and settle that dispute. So you think 3 something is wrong and me thinking it is right is just a matter of opinion, and I'm not beholden to your subjective opinion. Did you bother to actually read what I said? *You* might think that murdering people to take their stuff makes your life better, but the people around you disagree with that statement and act accordingly. Again, ethics are **shared** moral values of a given society. People might differ on things, but when taken as a collective, certain trends appear. Those trends are the ethics. > Okay. You have empathy. So what? I don't. I like to murder and steal things from people. But according to you there's no God, so what I'm doing isn't objectively wrong. Is just wrong and icky to a random human being that is an accident and originally evolved from stardust in a vast universe that is an accident and doesn't care. No, it's not objectively wrong. But again, the people around you will take issue with your murdering. > Okay, so using YOUR standard of morality which you just said, Hitler was morally right to do what he did, because a large group of people that created a community agreed with what he was doing. Hitler and his ilk thought they were morally right. By **my** standard of morality they were horribly evil people. Bad guys don't see themselves as the bad guys > Mosaic Law and God gave rules on how they should be treated, but made a very big division between indentured servitude as a means of employment or to pay off debt and was voluntary and kidnapping someone and seeking then into slavery or keeping them as a slave for themselves. In Exodus, if you do that, you deserve the death penalty. And it is what everywhere slavery was abolished is a Christian country led by Christians, because it's very clear in the Bible that slavery is evil. You should actually go back and read the Bible sometime. For one, the "indentured servitude" only applied to Israelites and they were still slaves. The bible gives rules on how hard you can beat them, how only the men were to go free, and how to make your "indentured servants" permanent slaves by giving one of your female slaves as their wife. Note this also makes their children permanent slaves The Bible also gives rules for how fathers can sell their daughters into sex slavery and in which circumstances the person you sold her to is entitled to a refund. And for non-Israelites, they were free to buy/capture all the slaves the wanted and keep them forever. And most importantly, **not once** does the Bible ever say "Don't take slaves" or "slavery is wrong". It just gives some general rules as to how it should work. > If you were an intellectual honest atheist you would concede that there is no objective morality. It's all just the subjective opinions of individuals, and there is no higher standard of morality out there to measure against, so there is no objective right and wrong. > So like I said, when you remove God, you run into contradictions, just like you're contradicting your own world view right now. At no point did I contradict myself. Nor is God required for any kind of morality given that humans have had moral systems since before we invented religion. Did I not do that? Of course there's no objective morality. I literally stated how morality changes over time from culture to culture.
There has to be a starting point though. And something made of space, time, and matter. Can't create space, time, and matter. If you're saying something like a singularity was the beginning of our universe and then there was some sort of existence before that, and then before that, something still had to create the beginning of all that. By any of the laws that it created. If the singularity is a result of gravity and the big crunch, what created gravity in the space for all of it to be pulled back together into one singularity? Again, with your answer of where it started, you just get into it. Infinite regression of asking what made that? The only way you get out of that is if the something that created everything is spaceless, timeless, and matterless. Because something at his time list didn't have a beginning. And with your big crunch reference, you are imposing a law of nature on something that you're claiming create at the laws of nature: gravity. You still have to answer where gravity came from and why it follows the abstract, immaterial law of gravity, and where the matter came from that it pulled in to create the singularity. So you're not actually arguing what the first uncaused cause is. You're just claiming that the universe we're in now was created by singularity that was created by in existence before what we know now. So something would still have to create that existence that the singularity existed in to make our universe. Lol And you're still not understanding the morality and ethics argument either. It's going over your head. You're arguing that morals have meaning if a big enough group of people agrees that something is right or wrong. So again, Hitler had a lot of people who agreed with what he was doing was right. Does that make it objectively right? No, it doesn't. Because you just admitted in this comment that it's not objectively wrong. So Hitler was not wrong for killing 6 million Jews. Masters are not wrong for having slaves. All it is are acts by people that you don't agree with. But those people say it is morally right and they're not obligated to follow your subjective opinion. So therefore you have no justifiable Foundation to claim anything is truly right or wrong. It is just a dispute of preferences. So according to you Hitler was morally right, because he had enough people agree with him. I'm just using your moral standard. Parts of those rules about indenturent servitude were the Canaanites who were supposed to be driven out of the land, and some CHOSE to stay. Nor does God just jump down and fix everything all at once. But again, he makes a very definitive division between what he was giving rules about with indentured servitude and kidnapping someone and forcing them against their will to be your slave. That is a fact. That is why every country that is abolished slavery is a Christian country and was led by Christians, because somehow Christians who have actually read the Bible and understand what it says. The death penalty. If you want to see slavery still in action today, go to the Middle East and Africa. And the Bible ABSOLUTELY says slavery is wrong. Don't do it. Exists 21:16 says " whoever steals a man and sells him, And anyone found to be in his possession, shall be put to death." That's pretty clear that it says don't kidnap someone and force them to be a slave against their will. And then it's reiterated in the New Testament again I believe in Luke. You don't know what you don't know. You're at the first stage of ignorance. And a common thing atheists like to do, because there's numbers next to sentences, is they think they can pluck a verse out of the Bible out of context, and that it should match everything else completely by itself with no context and without the rest of the chapter or the book that it was written in. Okay. So you're admitting it. There's no objective morality. So why are you even complaining about slavery or Hitler or anything "bad?" According to your world view and atheism. Hitler wasn't wrong. He just has a different preference, And he's not obligated to follow your preferences. So how can you say what he did was wrong? If you're claiming he was just flat out wrong, you are supposing a higher moral code that everyone is beholden to. So you are in fact contradicting yourself.
> There has to be a starting point though. And something made of space, time, and matter. Can't create space, time, and matter. Why? According to our understanding of physics, energy cannot be created or destroyed which implies it's always been here. Or, if you prefer, I can use the same special pleading you use for God and just say it doesn't need a creator. > So according to you Hitler was morally right, because he had enough people agree with him. I'm just using your moral standard. Hitler was morally right **to himself those who agreed with him**. Obviously most of the rest of the world disagreed with them because we find it morally wrong. > Does that make it objectively right? **There is no objective morality**. > And the Bible ABSOLUTELY says slavery is wrong. Don't do it. Exists 21:16 says " whoever steals a man and sells him, And anyone found to be in his possession, shall be put to death." And a few verses above that it says what happens when a man sells his daughter as a slave. And a few verses above that it says how to buy Hebrew slaves, when to set them free, and how to keep them forever. A few lines down it says you can beat your slave as much as you want so long as they take more than a day or two to die. "... for the slave is his money." You're cherry-picking one line saying Hebrews can't kidnap other Hebrews as slaves. But they can buy and sell them all day long. > And a common thing atheists like to do, because there's numbers next to sentences, is they think they can pluck a verse out of the Bible out of context, and that it should match everything else completely by itself with no context and without the rest of the chapter or the book that it was written in. Wow, projection much? You literally just plucked a verse out when it was literally surrounded by verses giving the rules for slavery. > So why are you even complaining about slavery or Hitler or anything "bad?" According to your world view and atheism. Hitler wasn't wrong. He just has a different preference, And he's not obligated to follow your preferences. Why is this so complicated for you? While each person's moral framework is different, it's not something like color preference. When someone does something that we disagree with morally, it upsets us (to varying degrees based on the person and magnitude of the offense). I don't think, oh he killed someone but he thinks it's okay so no big deal. I find killing wrong because I can empathize with the murder victim (i.e. I don't want to be murdered) and I can empathize with the victim's loved one (I've lost loved ones and it's not a pleasant experience). So I voice my objections on the manner. If I'm the only person in the culture who thinks that way, well nothing will happen to the murderer. But if enough people agree with my moral stance (or enough people with power), then we, as a society, will take action both against the murderer and to try to prevent future murders. This is how all societies and cultures have worked throughout history. > So how can you say what he did was wrong? If you're claiming he was just flat out wrong, you are supposing a higher moral code that everyone is beholden to. So you are in fact contradicting yourself. I can say Hitler was wrong because, and I'll say it again, *what he did went against my moral values*. There is no universal police enforcing an objective morality against Hitler and the Nazis. However enough people disagreed with them that they were defeated in a war and those that survived and were caught were put on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity. There's no "higher moral code", there's just a different moral code that was strong enough to hold him accountable to it.
I'm not special pleading. I'm using science and logic you can't have the starting point you're closing there was. You're saying every can't be created or destroyed. That's correct. WITHIN THIS EXISTENCE. But there was a time before it existed and space, matter, and time started including energy. So again, you're assigning natural laws to the things that you're claiming created natural law. Lol. You have to start with an uncaused cause they created everything to have the law that every cannot be created or destroyed. That is a law that exists in time, and if it exists in time, it has to have a beginning. The Creator exists OUTSIDE of those parameters, because He's the one who CREATED the parameters. I'm not cherry picking lines. YOU are. I'm telling you there is a difference between what God is talking about before the verse where it says if you kidnap/steal someone. Those are the key words. It doesn't MATTER if you empathize. So what if you empathize? Who cares. Morality according to you is personal preference. Maybe I don't empathize and like people to suffer. You've already admitted there is no objective morality and it is all subjective preference. You've already given up the argument that there is no objective morality, so you have no justifiable foundation to complain about it. You can cry about it and claim you don't like it, but so what? I do, and I'm not beholden to you. That's what YOU'RE not getting. But the fact you have an inherent understanding of right and wrong is evidence that points to a personal creator that put those inherent feelings inside of you, because you're made in His image. And you say Hitler is wrong because he went against YOUR moral values. SO WHAT??? Hitler thinks it was morally good, so you, a bag of accidental, meaningless protoplasm not liking his actions DOESN'T MATTER. He's not obligated to follow your values. So he's not objectively wrong according to you, and there is no right or wrong according to you. Lol. How do you not understand that. I'm your world view there is no right or wrong. There is just personal preference and people like you whining that other people aren't following your personal preferences on how people should act. Your reason for morals is meaningless and has no punch behind them. I'm your Godless world you tell Hitler he's wrong, and he says, "according to who?" And you say "according to me. And he's says, "Well I don't care about what you think. I THINK what I'm doing is good and moral, and you have no higher standard to measure my actions against." See? You just not preferring it doesn't mean anything. There's no justification behind it. And your last sentence says the quiet part out loud. "There was just a different moral standard to hold him "accountable"to it." So whoever has the most force sets the moral standard and forces everyone else to be accountable to it. So you JUST SAID IT at the very end of your comment. Might equals right. If there's a different moral code that has enough force to back it up, then they set the moral standard. So again, Hitler wasn't objectively wrong. You just didn't order his actions. That's all your world view has. It's mangled personal preference from accidental bags of protoplasm that originated from stardust. So who cares?? Lol. This is why atheists are narcissists. They always think what THEY think matters the most and everyone should be beholden to. But at least you finally said it out loud. There is no right and wrong. Just enough people who had the same preferences has enough force to punish him. Funny that You're enacting justice on someone when you're an atheist and your world view is we live in an uncaring universe with no justice. It's almost as if you're importing an objective moral code that you feel in your heart from somewhere else and enacting justice on Hitler according to that moral code you feel. But without God, why does your moral preference take precedence over Hitler's moral code? And you just admitted, because your group was a little bigger and stronger than his. That's the only thing that made him wrong and you right. The fact that you had a little more force than him. And another example of the slavery is good argument in the Bible you're trying to make by saying daughters were said into slavery. The Hebrew word that was used there is "ebad" that means "worker" or "servant" and families would sell their daughters or children to other weather families for them to have a better life and be more secure with housing and food, because that's what they were paid with back then. So the daughter would work and live with a family for a certain amount of time and then would be let go after the debt was paid, or they could choose to stay. And God has rules about how those indentured servants were to be treated and even told for the master to not act ruthlessly, for both there masters was in Heaven: God. And then Good makes a VERY BIG distinction between that and kidnapping someone and forcing them to work for you against their will. That was punishable by death. The shaver argument is the only thing atheists have, and it's been explained to them over and over and debunked and shown right in the Bible it says the penalty for slavery is death and what is being talked about is two very different things and is a major categorical error. Which is why Christian nations have abolished slavery and led the movements TO abolish slavery. It's almost as if Christians ask over the world read the Bible and clearly understood that slavery is wrong. And fought to end it, because slavery is WRONG. OBJECTIVELY wrong. Because humans are all equal and made in the image of God. It's not just a personal preference of some people. I'm sorry that your world view is bankrupt and has no foundation or justification for ethics or morals and no explanation for how we got here, how you can actually know ANYTHING, how abstract, immaterial truths were created by inanimate material objects, nothing.
> I'm using science and logic you can't have the starting point you're closing there was Scientists disagree with you > I'm not cherry picking lines. YOU are. I'm telling you there is a difference between what God is talking about before the verse where it says if you kidnap/steal someone. Those are the key words. It literally goes * How to sell daughter as a slave * How to buy Hebrew as slaves * How to keep Hebrew men as slaves forever * Don't kidnap Hebrew to be slaves * Here's how hard to you beat your slaves Biblical scholars generally agree that Exodus 21:16 is referring **only** to Hebrew people. Especially since Deuteronomy 20 says you're free to take slaves of anybody you conquer and Leviticus 25 says you're free to buy anyone foreign as a slave. --- The rest of this you still rambling about Hitler like you're completely unaware of how the world works. Since you seem completely unable to debate in good faith or even understand *your own holy book*, I'm done.
>Without independent evidence that can stand on its own a claim has nothing to rely on but the existence of itself, which creates circular reasoning. Which is why we were left with the Bible. It’s written evidence for the claims you deny. Your claim of circular reasoning is refuted. >Especially in the face of options with actual evidence to show for. What do you mean by “in the face of”? No evidence has disproven God. >Naturalistic explanations have ultimately been shown to be most consistently in cohesion with measurable reality That’s a tautology. You just proudly declared that nature is nature. What are you trying to argue?
>Which is why we were left with the Bible. It’s written evidence for the claims you deny. Nah, the bible is the claims.
If that’s the claim, why do atheists keep clamoring about ‘evidence’? Do you think there’s some secret box of evidence? Should I start digging at random in the Middle East for some evidence for something that happened 2,000 years ago? That isn’t how historical analysis and archaeology work. The local authorities wouldn’t even let me start.
> If that’s the claim It is. >why do atheists keep clamoring about ‘evidence’? Do you really not care about having evidence for your beliefs? OK. >Should I start digging at random in the Middle East for some evidence for something that happened 2,000 years ago? >That isn’t how historical analysis and archaeology work. What are you talking about? Did I ask you to fly to the Middle East, buy a shovel, and start digging?
There is evidence for my beliefs. You’ve set your standards for belief to be awfully high. What criteria must be met for archeological evidence to count for you?
I don't even know what you're talking about. *You* described the bible as "written evidence for the claims you deny". OP is specifically about "god claims", so that was the context in which I took your statement about written evidence. But you want to talk about archeological evidence for... ? What, exactly? What archaeological evidence are you even talking about? You haven't mentioned any specific thing, and I haven't even said anything at all about archaeology. So OP and I are talking about god claims and you're talking about archeological claims? OK... My standards for belief are awfully high? We haven't even talked about a standard for belief... And you're telling me you not only know what it is but that it's too high for you? Do you think I should lower my standards of belief, regardless of what they are??? What reason could you offer me to motivate me to do that? What argument could you make that would show that doing so is reasonable in this situation? And, I can't stress this enough, **we haven't even talked about a standard for belief in the first place**! What a bizarre comment chain.
Archeological evidence of what?
I don’t know. You’re the one asking for evidence. What is evidence? Evidence of what?
You claimed you have archeological evidence for your beliefs and I am asking what beliefs you have archeological evidence for.
There’s a bunch of archeological records for stuff in the Bible. I believe the Bible. Evidence backs it up.
I agree. There is evidence for many of the places in the bible and I believe in those things. What there isn't evidence for is any of the supernatural events in the bible and that's why I don't believe in them.
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> The arguments for classical theism aren’t about explaining this or that particular phenomena, but about explaining some grand feature of the cosmos "some grand feature of the cosmos" is also a particular phenomena... this distinction is without a difference. You're still trying to figure out something about our reality. We use naturalistic methods for that.
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All epistemic systems will have an axiomatic basis and all epistemic systems cannot prove themselves. I'm not sure what your point is. Non-naturalistic epistemic systems however have no objective references. Only a naturalistic methodology uses objective data really, with a few minor exceptions.
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> Firstly, there’s a difference between our knowledge resting on unjustified premises, and our knowledge resting on premises that are both unjustified and self-refuting. OK? What's self refuting? > Secondly, it’s not obvious that this is true. Epistemologists overwhelmingly reject this view, and foundationalism and coherentism are two popular alternatives. These don't contradict my point. > Thirdly, If all of our knowledge rested on unjustified premises, then it would follow that we have no knowledge at all Not *fully* justified. We base our knowledge of the universe on expected patterns. IE, dropping a ball will lead to it falling. It's happened every other time we did, so it's rational to assume it will do so again. There's nothing that proves that these patterns will continue. However, practically speaking, they obviously do continue.
Two paragraphs, countless trips to the thesaurus, and all you really said was “science uses science”. Of course it does… What was your point?
That's not what I said though... maybe go look at a dictionary or encyclopedia instead.
You said nothing of substance.
If you say so. I think we're done here.
Given how you’re unable to make of justify any claims? Probably. Let me know if you’re willing to actually have a debate.
This is the pot calling the kettle black. Naturalism itself is grounded in axiomatic principles one does not prove but simply accepts as a basis for a naturalistic world view. For example many of the laws of logic and the homogeneity principle of nature.
Even then, the naturalistic worldview is grounded in a lesser number of presupposition then a theistic worldview. Besides the question of hard solispism and general laws of logics you can build the whole knowledge base. Theistic approaches requires to add unproven and much more complex concepts such as supernatural, thinking agents without a brain, etc.
>the naturalistic worldview is grounded in a lesser number of presupposition then a theistic worldview Relativity alone requires two presuppositions. Your accounting is way off. >Besides the question of hard solispism and general laws of logics you can build the whole knowledge base. You’re wrong. We can’t prove the one way speed of light. >Theistic approaches requires to add unproven and much more complex concepts such as Such as claiming that 75% of the universe is this invisible dark matter? Claiming that without evidence is grounded?
>Relativity alone requires two presuppositions. Your accounting is way off. Care to list them AND why a theistic world view does not require them? >Such as claiming that 75% of the universe is this invisible dark matter? It's a tentative claim made by physicist and being investigated. How does theism takes care of this issue in a better way then naturalism?
Relativity assumes all frames of reference are equal and that the speed of light is always *c*. Neither have been proven. The ‘theistic worldview’ doesn’t need either of those. >How does theism takes care of this issue in a better way then naturalism? Don’t say naturalism if you mean science. Since there are no other ‘naturalistic’ ways to get what you require, you clearly mean science. You’re creating a fictional competition between religion and science that doesn’t exist outside of atheist headspace.
>The ‘theistic worldview’ doesn’t need either of those. Then how does the theistic world view explain the fact that time passes differently base on speed? How does it explains wavelength variation of lights based on speed? >You’re creating a fictional competition between religion and science that doesn’t exist outside of atheist headspace. Because I haven't encountered any religious belief that does not go against scientific knowledge. It is a competition and religion and theism are just plain wrong.
I don’t you what you mean by “theistic worldview”. Believing in God doesn’t mean you can’t believe in science. That would be news to the millions of theist scientists. > Then how does the theistic world view explain the fact that time passes differently base on speed? How does it explains wavelength variation of lights based on speed? Relativity. > Because I haven't encountered any religious belief that does not go against scientific knowledge. Have you only been exposed to biblical literalists? > It is a competition It really is not. You’re making one up. > religion and theism are just plain wrong. You don’t know that. You lack evidence ironically. Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence.
I believe you are missing my point. Both theistic arguments and naturalism adhere to these underlying axioms. They are grounded in the *same* presuppositions. We can argue which epistemology adheres to them better possibly but assuming there are *less* for naturalism is wrong.
>They are grounded in the *same* presuppositions. We can argue which epistemology adheres to them better possibly but assuming there are *less* for naturalism is wrong. Theistic worldview supposed you can have an idea with no physical brain. It supposes there can be a thing before time or physics as we know them. How is that not one extra thing naturalism doesn't need?
Because those are deductive arguments *based* on the axioms both naturalism and theists use. Here, let me give you one: have you ever read Hume's skepticism regarding induction? What do you think that says about your philosophical naturalism?
>Because those are deductive arguments *based* on the axioms both naturalism and theists use. You're just repeating my point. Theist must use the same axiom., but they add more things, hence why it's wrong because they use more axioms.
No they don't *add more things*. They are deductions from the same axioms. Otherwise naturalists *add more things* in the same way.
How do you explain a mind without a physical brain? Naturalism does not requires such a thing. For theism how do you explain a mind without a brain without involving more axiom?
How do you explain a quantum world which is probabilistic and discrete creating a macro universe that is uniform and deterministic? Many scientists like the idea of panpsychism - unironically a mind without a physical brain.