Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Theism and Atheism => Topic started by: Walt Zingmatilder on November 29, 2015, 06:22:31 PM
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Professor Gary Gutting examines the antitheist argument that there are no arguments for God and argumentum ad ridiculum here.
http://tinyurl.com/olenwe5
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So, you'll be kicking off the thread with your summation of the best argument(/s) put forward on the linked article then won't you Chunsty...?
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So, you'll be kicking off the thread with your summation of the best argument(/s) put forward on the linked article then won't you Chunsty...?
Yes. He refutes the bald assertion that any argument for God is unreasonable.
In other words lots of reasonable arguments and then he goes on to say that Dawkins reasons for the No argument argument are insufficient.
I like your new argument squeaky.
Vlad didn't start an OP how I like.....therefore God doesn't exist.
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So someone else has lots of reasonable arguments but you can't even summarise one of them.
To quote two of the great thinkers of our times, "Good grief. It gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level."
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So someone else has lots of reasonable arguments
Yes.......but not Dawkins.
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Professor Gary Gutting examines the antitheist argument that there are no arguments for God and argumentum ad ridiculum here.
http://tinyurl.com/olenwe5
Wow, two paragraphs in and we get:
1 - There is something that is caused.
2 - Whatever is caused must be caused by a cause other than itself.
3 - If every cause is caused, then there is an endless series(an infinite regress) of causes.
4 - An infinite regress of causes is impossible.
5 - Therefore, there is an uncaused cause (i.e., the first cause: the cause of the series of causes that are themselves caused).
4 - why? 5, given 3 is already demonstrated false, the argument contradicts itself in two steps.
He then complains that Professor Dawkins tone in dismissing the ontological argument somehow invalidates his argument as though:
a) that worked, or
b) Professor Dawkins was the only person in history to have pointed out the assertion in the idea that something that exists is somehow a more perfect version than an idealised version that doesn't.
"There are arguments that we rightly reject just because their conclusions strike us as absurd. Dawkins himself gives the case of Zeno’s paradoxes, a set of arguments concluding that motion is impossible."
Except that we don't reject Zeno's paradox because the conclusion strikes us as absurd, we reject it because neither time nor space are infinitely reducible, both approaching limits beyond which they cannot be reduced, and because mathematically the sum of an infinite number of infinitely small elements is a finite value, this is the root of integration.
Finally, his dismissal of the idea that we should accept the notion of God because of personal revelation completely fails to address the point: what is the methodology by which you can verify? We know even personal revelations of God are fallible, because people have had them about mutually incompatible gods - if we know that at least some of them are wrong, how do we know that they aren't all wrong?
Ultimately, of course, he's failing the same way theists continually fail - hiding in the possibilities and trying to push the burden onto atheists to disprove a God that hasn't adequately been justified in the first place.
And, finally, this little peach of special pleading to finish with, on why God explains everything, but nothing is required to explain God:
"If there is to be an ultimate explanation, then, it must be something that itself requires no explanation but explains everything else."
Which is fine, except: a) why does there need to be an ultimate explanation, and b) why do we arbitrarily decide to stop at 'God'?
O.
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Except that we don't reject Zeno's paradox because the conclusion strikes us as absurd, we reject it because neither time nor space are infinitely reducible, both approaching limits beyond which they cannot be reduced, and because mathematically the sum of an infinite number of infinitely small elements is a finite value, this is the root of integration.
No. The reason we reject Zeno's argument is that it makes a claim about the real world that is obviously false. This is science in action. We would know it to be false even if we hadn't figured out the flaw in the mathematics.
Incidentally, Zeno's argument doesn't fail because the World is not infinitely divisible but because the sum of an infinite series can be finite.
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I'd never heard of this bloke Gutting until 2 minutes ago, Am I gutted about it? Nah!!
As soon as I read that he was a Roman Catholic apologist, who studied fancy philosophy, I knew it would be a pointless exercise reading any of the shite he's written...
Case in point: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/30/on-being-catholic/?_r=0
Where he burbles on about James Joyce’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." - talk about twisting a mot to fit your philosophy!!
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Dear Outrider,
As I hopefully wait for other posters to jump into this debate ( just so I can more fully understand the argument ) and please remember I am only inquiring, I am not having a go at you, I am looking for clarification ( I might have a go at Farmers post, why, it's Farmer :P )
Anyway you say,
b) why do we arbitrarily decide to stop at 'God'?
But this Gutting guy says,
Dawkins thinks the argument is readily refuted: the theistic argument makes “the entirely unwarranted assumption that God himself is immune to the regress.” In other words, there is no answer to the intelligent child who, when told that God made everything, asks, who made God?
But, contrary to Dawkins, the argument does not assume that God is “immune to the regress”—that is, has no cause other than himself. Rather, it states premises (1)–(4), from which it logically follows (5) that there is an uncaused cause (God). But none of these premises state (or assume) that God has no cause. Dawkins’s criticism works only if we make the elementary logical mistake of thinking that, because the argument’s premises imply its conclusion, it has presupposed the conclusion. That doesn’t mean the argument is compelling—we’ll see below that it isn’t, even in a more sophisticated form. But Dawkins’s comment isn’t even the beginning of a cogent critique.
To me the guy is saying God could have a cause, we don't have to stop at God.
Am I reading it wrong, or am I misunderstanding your argument.
Gonnagle.
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Dear Farmer,
As soon as I read that he was a Roman Catholic apologist, who studied fancy philosophy, I knew it would be a pointless exercise reading any of the shite he's written...
A terminal case of confirmation bias.
Gonnagle.
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No. The reason we reject Zeno's argument is that it makes a claim about the real world that is obviously false. This is science in action. We would know it to be false even if we hadn't figured out the flaw in the mathematics.
I don't think so. Quantum entanglement is 'obviously false' until you look at the data and find that it's actually happening. It might be easier to make the observations of an arrow than of quantum entanglement, but our senses are fallible and our internal model of reality contains assumptions and short-cuts. We might be motivated to examine the claim because it seems counter-intuitive, but that counter-intuitiveness doesn't mean that it's definitively wrong.
Incidentally, Zeno's argument doesn't fail because the World is not infinitely divisible but because the sum of an infinite series can be finite.
Actually, it's both. Conceptually it fails because of the maths, practically it fails because there's a lower limit of distance beyond which the idea of distance breaks down (the Planck length, from memory?)
O.
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To me the guy is saying God could have a cause, we don't have to stop at God.
Am I reading it wrong, or am I misunderstanding your argument.
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He does say that in steps 1-3, and in and of itself that's fine. What we think of as 'God' could be one of the steps before 'Universe', and would itself have causes.
It's his step 5 where he arbitrarily changes that and decides that there must be an uncaused cause which he's decided is God.
Why is it God that is the uncaused cause? Why is there suddenly an uncaused cause when we established in the premises that everything that beings must have a cause?
That's because of that arbitrary, unjustified claim that we can't possibly have an infinite regress in step 4. Even if he could justify step 4, there's nothing that says the immediate cause of the universe (the classic 'God') must be the uncaused cause at the start of the chain.
This isn't an argument for the Christian God per se, it's a justification for the idea of a principle cause of reality, so the argument doesn't require the uncaused cause to be the immediate cause of the universe, or it to be God, though that's often how Christians tend to interpret it. It fails in any regard because of the unjustified step 4, and the special pleading of the contradiction between step 2 and step 5.
O.
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Well, my Wee Free Pal.
You forced to actually read the article cited in the OP and sad to say it lived up to my expectations.
Its nub came be summed up here:
Failure of the No-Arguments Argument
The result at which we have arrived for the cosmological argument typifies many seriously developed philosophical arguments for God’s existence. There are, in particular, arguments (based on classical versions by Aquinas, Averroes, and Leibniz) that use a variety of causal principles. Also, Plantinga’s formulation of an ontological argument requires only the premise that God’s existence is possible (although possible in a suitably strong sense, which leaves room for disagreement).
There are, then, theistic arguments that are logically valid and depend on one or two premises that are not obviously or demonstrably false and have a certain intuitive appeal. Some people may, on reflection, rationally accept the premises, and therefore, the conclusion. But there is no rational requirement to accept the premises, and it can be equally rational to deny them.
Really?
The cosmological/causality argument goes along the lines of;
1. We are beings who are dependent on a being unknown.
2. How do we explain this being to the beings who are dependent.
3. By stating there must be a necessary being looking after these dependent beings.
4. That explains why there must be an infinite regress of dependent beings in need of an explanation by a necessary being.
5. Ergo, there is a necessary being that explains the existence of dependent beings. That being being God.
The only thing missing is actually evidence of said being.
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I still find it odd to have arguments for something existing. I suppose that this happens in science sometimes, when we might posit an unknown something to account for various observations, thus gravity as curved spacetime. But then scientists hunt for confirmation.
But to say that something must exist because here are these arguments, seems peculiar to me. This goes back to the divine hiddenness argument - this something is so hidden that we must construct arguments for its existence. Bizarro.
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I still find it odd to have arguments for something existing. I suppose that this happens in science sometimes, when we might posit an unknown something to account for various observations, thus gravity as curved spacetime. But then scientists hunt for confirmation.
But to say that something must exist because here are these arguments, seems peculiar to me. This goes back to the divine hiddenness argument - this something is so hidden that we must construct arguments for its existence. Bizarro.
Also, they tend to read as very odd arguments, that take as their premises quite bizarre statements and then torture them. This seems to happen because they are presented in some boiled down version that other than looking like some syllogistic logic doesn't address any of how one makes assumptions.
In the ontological argument, we have this conept of a thing being greater without any work being down on whether that is a coherent statement. It ends up with a lot of green ideas sleeping furiously. To an extent, it's part of what Thrud has characterised as yer' fancy philosophy' but while I think that you can examone thngs with some fancy philosophy these sort of arguments miss out the hard yards. In that sense Gutting is right that Dawkins isn't doing the hard yards either but he isn't stating that he has, he's doing a Johnson as a refutation of Berkeley.
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I just find divine hiddenness a killer. This omnipotent being (who loves you to bits), has decided to conceal himself, but fortunately, there are these clever arguments that prove that he does exist (and does love you), and being hidden is actually part of the whole wonderfulness of it. Well, it is kind of attractive, like being part of a secret society, with special passwords.
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I just find divine hiddenness a killer. This omnipotent being (who loves you to bits), has decided to conceal himself, but fortunately, there are these clever arguments that prove that he does exist (and does love you), and being hidden is actually part of the whole wonderfulness of it. Well, it is kind of attractive, like being part of a secret society, with special passwords.
Though surely the idea that is touted to deal wth that is that those of us who have any difficulty seeing such an omnipotent thingy are the ones hiding, as Vlad is often wont to declare in his best Francis Thompson impersonation, that it's just us running away from the doggie of divinity.
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Dear Outrider,
The sticking points,
Point 4.
An infinite regress of causes is impossible.
“the entirely unwarranted assumption that God himself is immune to the regress.”
But, contrary to Dawkins, the argument does not assume that God is “immune to the regress”—that is, has no cause other than himself. Rather, it states premises (1)–(4), from which it logically follows (5) that there is an uncaused cause (God). But none of these premises state (or assume) that God has no cause. Dawkins’s criticism works only if we make the elementary logical mistake of thinking that, because the argument’s premises imply its conclusion, it has presupposed the conclusion. That doesn’t mean the argument is compelling—we’ll see below that it isn’t, even in a more sophisticated form. But Dawkins’s comment isn’t even the beginning of a cogent critique.
Can we prove that God exists? Richard Dawkins and the limits of faith and atheism
Atheists sometimes argue the case against God is the same as the case against Santa Claus. Let's test the logic
The limits of faith and atheism.
Actually Outrider, I think I should address this post to myself, yes I am confused :P :P :o not to worry, I will work it out in my own sweet time ::)
::)
Gonnagle.
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That's because of that arbitrary, unjustified claim that we can't possibly have an infinite regress in step 4. Even if he could justify step 4, there's nothing that says the immediate cause of the universe (the classic 'God') must be the uncaused cause at the start of the chain.
If an infinite regress is impossible, then what caused god's first thought?
This is the thing with these attempts to twist and turn to make justifications for over-complicated arguments that get out of control - you end up pissing in the wind by defeating your own argument. God does not escape infinite regress.
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If an infinite regress is impossible, then what caused god's first thought?
This is the thing with these attempts to twist and turn to make justifications for over-complicated arguments that get out of control - you end up pissing in the wind by defeating your own argument. God does not escape infinite regress.
Bootstrap paradox
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Dear Andy,
So God has thoughts.
Gonnagle.
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Though surely the idea that is touted to deal wth that is that those of us who have any difficulty seeing such an omnipotent thingy are the ones hiding, as Vlad is often wont to declare in his best Francis Thompson impersonation, that it's just us running away from the doggie of divinity.
Well, I suppose that's saying that God is not hidden. I think that's OK as a personal statement, (but then 'God is hidden' is also), but as soon as it becomes part of a discussion, you end up with a kind of abuse - the reason that you can't see God (unlike me), is 1) because you are blinded by evil; 2) you are stupid; 3) you are saturated in philosophical materialism; 4) you are hidden, etc.
It's really saying that you should be like me. It's not really an argument, more like an exhortation. Believe in the Lord (cheques payable to X. Y. Z. Salvation Inc.).
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Ah, the good old wonky sensus divinitatis beloved of William Lane Craig.
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Ah, the good old wonky sensus divinitatis beloved of William Lane Craig.
Nothing wrong with that. More acceptable than your sterile view of life: denouncing anything that doesn't fit into your narrow views. You are the archetypal egotist.
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I had a little think about a similar idea along these lines. Each religion gives its definition to its God and by its actions keeps it alive, but once that religion goes extinct that particular God ceases to have any credence or validity. It is just the idea of the God of its believers that keeps it in existence i.e. God supervenes on its believers and religion. Once they are gone that particular God has gone too.
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Nothing wrong with that.
Apart from the fact that it's utter crap; entirely unevidenced and completely self-serving madey-uppy ad hoc twaddle drafted in to shore up a creaking, hole-ridden baseless argument.
More acceptable than your sterile view of life
What's sterile about it?
denouncing anything that doesn't fit into your narrow views.
Make sure you understand the difference between 'denouncing' and 'disagreeing with,' as you seem to be eliding them here.
You are the archetypal egotist.
If you were as wonderful as I am, so would you be ;)
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the reason that you can't see God (unlike me), is 1) because you are blinded by evil; 2) you are stupid; 3) you are saturated in philosophical materialism; 4) you are hidden, etc.
It's really saying that you should be like me.
a Ha a bit of the old Wigginhallian clarity before Bluehillside revealed, asthmatically, that He was your ''father.''
I've never seen a believer on this or any other post declare that others were ''stupid''. That is a Dawkinsian ploy.
For those who saturate themselves in philosophical materialism my question....and yours Wiggs is why? Given it's massive internal contradiction and trouble with establishing what Armstrong refers to as Virtue.
The hiddenness thing that gets you is obscure to me and something that I've only seen in Christian mysticism. At the moment I view atheist arguments against God because of hiddenness are merely complaints that he cannot be put at the business end of a telescope or microscope.
I look forward to The wigginhall guide to the Hiddenness argument.
As for Turd the Barbarian or whatever he calls himself these days,
Turds objections are, as usual unpolished.
Yes when a catholic disagrees with Dawkins Turd may think it's catholic shite but he should be more concerned with the mountain of atheist objections to Dawkins which, I guess we have to refer to now as ''Atheist shite''.
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a Ha a bit of the old Wigginhallian clarity before Bluehillside revealed, asthmatically, that He was your ''father.''
I've never seen a believer on this or any other post declare that others were ''stupid''. That is a Dawkinsian ploy.
For those who saturate themselves in philosophical materialism my question....and yours Wiggs is why? Given it's massive internal contradiction and trouble with establishing what Armstrong refers to as Virtue.
The hiddenness thing that gets you is obscure to me and something that I've only seen in Christian mysticism. At the moment I view atheist arguments against God because of hiddenness are merely complaints that he cannot be put at the business end of a telescope or microscope.
I look forward to The wigginhall guide to the Hiddenness argument.
As for Turd the Barbarian or whatever he calls himself these days,
Turds objections are, as usual unpolished.
Yes when a catholic disagrees with Dawkins Turd may think it's catholic shite but he should be more concerned with the mountain of atheist objections to Dawkins which, I guess we have to refer to now as ''Atheist shite''.
I thought you were Turd the Barbarian!!!
Who are you? What was your original name?
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I thought you were Turd the Barbarian!!!
Who are you? What was your original name?
I'm afraid my original name is shrouded in inscrutable Hiddenness.
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I thought you were Turd the Barbarian!!!
Who are you? What was your original name?
Vlad, Chunstinator, any number of them.
Thrud, is Farmer Geddon and many others
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Apart from the fact that it's utter crap; entirely unevidenced and completely self-serving madey-uppy ad hoc twaddle drafted in to shore up a creaking, hole-ridden baseless argument.What's sterile about it?Make sure you understand the difference between 'denouncing' and 'disagreeing with,' as you seem to be eliding them here.If you were as wonderful as I am, so would you be ;)
Hi Shaky. What a lot of unhinged tosh! When are you giving King Kong his brain back! :D
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a Ha a bit of the old Wigginhallian clarity before Bluehillside revealed, asthmatically, that He was your ''father.''
I've never seen a believer on this or any other post declare that others were ''stupid''. That is a Dawkinsian ploy.
only took 4 posts for Bash after your post on this thread to call someone unhinged and having the brain of King Kong.
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Hi Shaky. What a lot of unhinged tosh! When are you giving King Kong his brain back! :D
This responding to posts business ... for you it's very much something that other people do, isn't it?
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This responding to posts business ... for you it's very much something that other people do, isn't it?
I respond to posts that are in some way relevant; or original. You never meet these requirements these days. Even your weather posts are facile, and that about sums it up.
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I respond to posts that are in some way relevant; or original. You never meet these requirements these days. Even your weather posts are facile, and that about sums it up.
The post was relevant - to wiggy's earlier points in #13, #15 and #21. Perhaps you have something to add to the subject of the thread?
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The post was relevant - to wiggy's earlier points in #13, #15 and #21. Perhaps you have something to add to the subject of the thread
The fact is, Shaky, if I were to give two pence for your thoughts, I'd need change back!
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The fact is, Shaky, if I were to give two pence for your thoughts, I'd need change back!
Clearly nothing, then.
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Clearly nothing, then.
No thoughts, I guess! :D
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No thoughts, I guess! :D
That's the conclusion I had formed at post #30.
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That's the conclusion I had formed at post #30.
"Conclusion"? Great! Now you can go: at last! 8)
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only took 4 posts for Bash after your post on this thread to call someone unhinged and having the brain of King Kong.
Er Wigginhall was referring to reasons for belief and disbelief. Since nobody gets to heaven on intelligence nobody is excluded from God's presence on grounds of stupidity.
For Dawkins intelligence is all, atheism equals intelligence. Therefore...as he is not tired of telling us ,believers are stupid......Let's not forget the number of people on this forum who come whenever his name is mentioned.
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Er Wigginhall was referring to reasons for belief and disbelief. Since nobody gets to heaven on intelligence nobody is excluded from God's presence on grounds of stupidity.
For Dawkins intelligence is all, atheism equals intelligence. Therefore...as he is not tired of telling us ,believers are stupid......Let's not forget the number of people on this forum who come whenever his name is mentioned.
And you wrote
'I've never seen a believer on this or any other post declare that others were ''stupid''. That is a Dawkinsian ploy.'
Which is an open statement not restricted in the way you seek to change it to.
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And you wrote
'I've never seen a believer on this or any other post declare that others were ''stupid''. That is a Dawkinsian ploy.'
Which is an open statement not restricted in the way you seek to change it to.
Context dear boy, context.
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Context dear boy, context.
Exactly ' this and any other post', context and English, as she is wrote.
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I wasn't talking about this forum anyway. There is a website called 'atheists are idiots', and another one which gives 5 reasons 'why atheism is stupid'.
http://thereforegodexists.com/5-reasons-atheism-stupid-2/
Doesn't the Bible say that the fool in his heart has said there is no God?
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Nothing wrong with that.
You think?
More acceptable than your sterile view of life: denouncing anything that doesn't fit into your narrow views.
There's a huge gulf between 'not accepting anything that doesn't fit a narrow view' and 'accepting any baseless tosh that's ejaculated by a fevered bronze age mind'. What I find truly remarkable is how you decide on exactly which of the equally baseless pieces of ancient fantasy literature you're going to accept as true.
You are the archetypal egotist.
Yes, we're the egotists, we're the ones that think the entirety of reality was created especially for us... Oh, wait, no that's... hang on...
O.
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For those who saturate themselves in philosophical materialism my question....and yours Wiggs is why?
You're posting a question because you think people are out there. Why? Because of the evidence of your senses and the consistent reality they appear to reflect. That's why you accept material, that's why we do, that's why everybody does.
What you mean is why is that all you accept - well, because there's no obvious reason to accept anything else.
Given it's massive internal contradiction and trouble with establishing what Armstrong refers to as Virtue.
If you're going to use it, you're going to have to explain what Armstrong means by 'Virtue'.
The hiddenness thing that gets you is obscure to me and something that I've only seen in Christian mysticism. At the moment I view atheist arguments against God because of hiddenness are merely complaints that he cannot be put at the business end of a telescope or microscope.
Or, indeed, anything else. It's almost like he's not actually there...
Yes when a catholic disagrees with Dawkins Turd may think it's catholic shite but he should be more concerned with the mountain of atheist objections to Dawkins which, I guess we have to refer to now as ''Atheist shite''.
Except that in the main those 'atheist objections to Dawkins' are typically about his manner and his politics, not his dismissal of the notion of gods as unevidenced assertion which needn't be accepted.
O.
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You think?
There's a huge gulf between 'not accepting anything that doesn't fit a narrow view' and 'accepting any baseless tosh that's ejaculated by a fevered bronze age mind'. What I find truly remarkable is how you decide on exactly which of the equally baseless pieces of ancient fantasy literature you're going to accept as true.
Yes, we're the egotists, we're the ones that think the entirety of reality was created especially for us... Oh, wait, no that's... hang on...
O.
Yes, got that bit exactly right. I'm surprised you admit it, but congratulations on your honesty, so rare amongst atheists on here. :)
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Yes, got that bit exactly right. I'm surprised you admit it, but congratulations on your honesty, so rare amongst atheists on here. :)
I should have realised that evolution would ensure that eventually nutjobbery would develop an immunity to irony...
O.
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I should have realised that evolution would ensure that eventually nutjobbery would develop an immunity to irony...
O.
Supercilious, cheap, shot.
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I should have realised that evolution would ensure that eventually nutjobbery would develop an immunity to irony...
O.
Supercilious, cheap, shot.
One good turn deserves another. Or, because you're such an Old Testament fan, an eye for an eye...
O.
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One good turn deserves another. Or, because you're such an Old Testament fan, an eye for an eye...
O.
Is that your idea of an insult? Or have you never read on here of my dismissal of the OT? The latter, I guess, because you seem uninformed in most things.
I am tired of repeating, to the uninformed and hard of understanding: Jesus said: "You have heard it said, in times of old, an eye for an eye...But I say unto you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also...etc."
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Except that in the main those 'atheist objections to Dawkins' are typically about his manner and his politics, not his dismissal of the notion of gods as unevidenced assertion which needn't be accepted.
Slimily put however I think it's generally accepted that Dawkins is deficient in philosophical argument against God.
I don't think people really give a shit that he has turned into atheism's equivalent of Alf Garnett and he doesn't register on any political radar although we must never forget that he is ''landed''.
Mind you I think he provided a Darwinian context for Thatcher, another pseudo philosophy for her like those of Friedman and Joseph.
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I don't think so.
Of course we would. If I fire an arrow from A to B, it gets to B. If Achilles has a race with a tortoise, Achilles will overtake the tortoise. Zeno's arguments are obviously false because the real World does not behave in the way that they predict it should.
Look at this video
http://amiquote.tumblr.com/post/4463599197/richard-feynman-on-how-we-would-look-for-a-new-law
Zeno's arguments disagree with experiment. Therefore, we know they are wrong before we even start looking for the flaw in the maths.
Actually, it's both. Conceptually it fails because of the maths, practically it fails because there's a lower limit of distance beyond which the idea of distance breaks down (the Planck length, from memory?)
Zeno's paradoxes fail whether the Universe is continuous or not. Before QM came along physicists were not agonising about why we could move from one place to another. Why not? Because the idea that a continuum is infinitely divisible was well understood and the maths actually refutes Zeno's argument.
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I don't think so. Quantum entanglement is 'obviously false' until you look at the data and find that it's actually happening. It might be easier to make the observations of an arrow than of quantum entanglement, but our senses are fallible and our internal model of reality contains assumptions and short-cuts. We might be motivated to examine the claim because it seems counter-intuitive, but that counter-intuitiveness doesn't mean that it's definitively wrong.
Zeno's "paradoxes" are just prime examples of philosophical bullshit.
A running man wouldn't wait at the last point a tortoise was at when he started running after it. He would catch up to it, kick it into the ditch and carry on to the pub.
Like the concept of a "God", "completed infinity"/"transfinite infinity" is just made up/imaginary bullshit.
Actually, it's both. Conceptually it fails because of the maths, practically it fails because there's a lower limit of distance beyond which the idea of distance breaks down (the Planck length, from memory?)
O.
More likely to be because the 'con'cept is full of shite!!
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Is that your idea of an insult?
No, it was another example of the irony of you accusing other people of your own failings - in this instance, suggesting I'd made a supercilious comment when I responded to your realisation you didn't have a point so instead you'd take a cheap shot and pretend like you'd scored a point.
Or have you never read on here of my dismissal of the OT?
Yes, I have, that's what made it ironic - something it appears you haven't studied yet. Or do you dismiss that with the magic spell 'MIDRASH', as well?
I am tired of repeating, to the uninformed and hard of understanding: Jesus said: "You have heard it said, in times of old, an eye for an eye...But I say unto you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also...etc."
And I keep pointing out:
a) Other passages of the New Testament say pretty much exactly the opposite, that Jesus has come to reinforce the Old Testament nonsense
b) Quoting scripture at me makes as much difference as me quoting the Silmarillion at you because I think it's a (poor) work of fiction.
O.
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Slimily put however I think it's generally accepted that Dawkins is deficient in philosophical argument against God.
Nice little 'ad hom' there; stay classy. I don't see that Professor Dawkins' fundamental philosophical argument against God has been shown as deficient at all: primarily he says that the case for God hasn't been made, and he's right.
His case for why religion is a bad thing needs some work, perhaps.
I don't think people really give a shit that he has turned into atheism's equivalent of Alf Garnett and he doesn't register on any political radar although we must never forget that he is ''landed''.
And yet he's the one that people keep crying about. It makes sense, of course, because he's the worst thing atheism has to offer, whereas we just have anti-abortion shooters, terrorist suicide bombers, institutional misogyny, homophobia and racism to throw back.
Mind you I think he provided a Darwinian context for Thatcher, another pseudo philosophy for her like those of Friedman and Joseph.
Yes, because what Professor Dawkins is famous for is advocating social Darwinism... oh, wait, no, that was one of the famous Catholics. Ratzinger? No, wait... Hitler, that was it.
O.
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Of course we would. If I fire an arrow from A to B, it gets to B. If Achilles has a race with a tortoise, Achilles will overtake the tortoise. Zeno's arguments are obviously false because the real World does not behave in the way that they predict it should.
If I fire an arrow from A at B it sometimes gets close to B, but I get your point. That's the motivation for investigating, certainly, but given we know our senses can be wrong, and given that we cannot definitively show the arrows actually exist in the first place, merely saying 'but I've seen it' isn't philosophically sufficient.
I appreciate that it's the sort of debate that makes most people look at philosophers like they're disappearing up their own arseholes: in the everyday sense you just read Zeno's paradox and say 'knob' and go and try to find where the arrows actually landed.
Zeno's arguments disagree with experiment. Therefore, we know they are wrong before we even start looking for the flaw in the maths.
Except that scientific findings are always only provisional. Some of them are so likely that we effectively work as though they were facts, but philosophically they're not.
O.
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No, it was another example of the irony of you accusing other people of your own failings - in this instance, suggesting I'd made a supercilious comment when I responded to your realisation you didn't have a point so instead you'd take a cheap shot and pretend like you'd scored a point.
Yes, I have, that's what made it ironic - something it appears you haven't studied yet. Or do you dismiss that with the magic spell 'MIDRASH', as well?
And I keep pointing out:
a) Other passages of the New Testament say pretty much exactly the opposite, that Jesus has come to reinforce the Old Testament nonsense
b) Quoting scripture at me makes as much difference as me quoting the Silmarillion at you because I think it's a (poor) work of fiction.
O.
What is the point of you posting on here? You, effectively have dismissed anything put to you, before it's even put! You are not a debater, you are a dogmatist, pure and simple.
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If I fire an arrow from A at B it sometimes gets close to B
B stands for "Barn door at 30 paces"
but I get your point.
Don't stand so close to the barn door then.
That's the motivation for investigating, certainly, but given we know our senses can be wrong
I would suggest that, in this case, our senses can be proved correct experimentally quite easily.
and given that we cannot definitively show the arrows actually exist in the first place
I have observed people's behaviour when I have a bow and arrow in my hands. Generally speaking they tend to move behind me, showing that they are firmly convinced of the arrow's existence.
merely saying 'but I've seen it' isn't philosophically sufficient.
I don't think solipsism leads to fruitful debate. I have observed arrows being fired a number of times, so I'm pretty sure they exist and they do get to their target (in the hands of a competent archer).
Except that scientific findings are always only provisional.
But some scientific findings are beyond refuting in practice.
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What is the point of you posting on here? You, effectively have dismissed anything put to you, before it's even put! You are not a debater, you are a dogmatist, pure and simple.
I don't dismiss anything before it's put, but if you want to cite someone else's words they you need to have a justification for thinking that the commentary is relevant - we're not talking about opinions of God after the fact has been demonstrated, we're talking reasons to think that there is a God in the first place, which you need in order to lend scripture any sort of credibility.
I'm dismissing a circular argument, nothing more, nothing less.
O.
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I don't dismiss anything before it's put, but if you want to cite someone else's words they you need to have a justification for thinking that the commentary is relevant - we're not talking about opinions of God after the fact has been demonstrated, we're talking reasons to think that there is a God in the first place, which you need in order to lend scripture any sort of credibility.
I'm dismissing a circular argument, nothing more, nothing less.
O.
So, effectively, that's what I said. You will dismiss any thing put to you, with some sort of repetitive excuse, whether valid or not. So my assessment stands.
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Nice little 'ad hom' there; stay classy. I don't see that Professor Dawkins' fundamental philosophical argument against God has been shown as deficient at all: primarily he says that the case for God hasn't been made, and he's right.
His case for why religion is a bad thing needs some work, perhaps.
And yet he's the one that people keep crying about. It makes sense, of course, because he's the worst thing atheism has to offer, whereas we just have ........................ institutional misogyny.
I believe New atheism has come under fire for mysogyny and a certain High profile New atheist at that.
He called his great tome 'The selfish Gene' and provides a backdrop for the social darwinianism of the Thatcher era.
Atheism thus passed from being left wing and socialist to being right, libertarian, socially disinterested and Xenophobic.
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If an infinite regress is impossible, then what caused god's first thought?
This is the thing with these attempts to twist and turn to make justifications for over-complicated arguments that get out of control - you end up pissing in the wind by defeating your own argument. God does not escape infinite regress.
The answer surely is that "Something" has always existed. If there is something and not nothing then some element of what we call life must have always existed; must be eternal.......well may be......
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I believe New atheism has come under fire for mysogyny and a certain High profile New atheist at that.
He called his great tome 'The selfish Gene' and provides a backdrop for the social darwinianism of the Thatcher era.
The phrase has nothing t do with right wing politics. It refers to the gene centred nature of evolution and not to the actions or characteristics of the organisms involved.
Atheism thus passed from being left wing and socialist to being right, libertarian, socially disinterested and Xenophobic.
Society may have become more like that but to link this to atheism and to the book the Selfish Gene is just stretching things in order to make a point that you want to make.
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So, effectively, that's what I said. You will dismiss any thing put to you, with some sort of repetitive excuse, whether valid or not. So my assessment stands.
No, I dismiss what you say not out of preconception, but because you use the circular argument of "God, therefore Bible, therefore God".
Don't get me wrong, I expect on most areas of discussion surrounding the existence of God and the basis of the Christian religion we probably would disagree, but I always review the argument presented (if there is one) and deal with that, I'm not one to dismiss arguments because of who makes them, or without explaining why.
O.
O.
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I believe New atheism has come under fire for mysogyny and a certain High profile New atheist at that.
As a movement, the only people that claim there are 'New Atheists' appear to be people who aren't classifying themselves as New Atheists. There is a situation where man are significantly more highly represented in the groups associated with 'New Atheism', but that's no more a facet of New Atheism than the same balance in, say, Parliament or the FTSE 100 boardrooms. The movements have arisen in a culture of institutional, relatively low-level, gender imbalance (and, similarly, racial imbalance).
There are, almost undoubtedly, individuals within the group you define as New Atheists who are misogynist to varying degrees in their outlook - are you suggesting that's because of their atheism? Or are you just making the observation that New Atheism doesn't make people perfect, because there is institutional misogyny and individual misogynists in, say, most Western Religious institutions? Or are you just firing of another ad hominem in the absence of an actual point to make about atheism?
He called his great tome 'The selfish Gene' and provides a backdrop for the social darwinianism of the Thatcher era.
I suggest you read it, if you haven't already. If you have, I suggest you try reading it again. He specifically schools against interpreting society as a vehicle for social Darwinism; that other people took the idea of 'survival of fittest' and decided it was a fine work ethic isn't down to him given that he neither coined the phrase nor advocated for its use in that context.
Atheism thus passed from being left wing and socialist to being right, libertarian, socially disinterested and Xenophobic.
Atheism has no wing, nor is it libertarian or conservative. Here you are confusing atheism and social Darwinism, as your first mistake - the idea that Thatcherism was at the same time advocating atheism is laughable.
You are also suggesting that these ideas are flowing from atheism, rather than the reality that they are associating with it or adopting it a the culture in which they are both expressed moves.
Various social and political classes might have favoured atheism at various times, but that's a facet of their politics and of culture, not of atheism.
O.