Searching for GOD...

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Science can be used to show how material entities react to events.  The optimism comes in assuming that this is sufficient to explain the occurrence of every event which has ever happened.

What makes you so optimistic about the truth of your belief that, even conceptually, science could never explain consciousness?

[torridon]

Science can be used to show how material entities react to events.  The optimism comes in assuming that this is sufficient to explain the occurrence of every event which has ever happened.

To illustrate simply, science can correctly predict how a moving billiard ball will react with the other balls on a table, but it can't be used to define the ultimate cause for the trajectory of the moving ball.  Optimism comes in the assumption that the ultimate case is just a chain of scientifically defined cause and effect events tracing back to the big bang with no outside interaction.  If outside interaction is used to explain the cause, then this must come from an event which was induced outside the physical cause and effect chain.

Firstly. if something external to a closed system has influence within the closed system, then that merely illustrates that the system is not actually closed, and concepts of 'outside' need to be re-examined, since the 'system' really needs to be enlarged.

Secondly, the notion of cause and effect transcends the merely 'physical'.

And I still don't see what 'optimism' has to do with it.

[Enki]

Science can be used to show how material entities react to events.  The optimism comes in assuming that this is sufficient to explain the occurrence of every event which has ever happened.

To illustrate simply, science can correctly predict how a moving billiard ball will react with the other balls on a table, but it can't be used to define the ultimate cause for the trajectory of the moving ball.  Optimism comes in the assumption that the ultimate case is just a chain of scientifically defined cause and effect events tracing back to the big bang with no outside interaction.  If outside interaction is used to explain the cause, then this must come from an event which was induced outside the physical cause and effect chain.

To take your last statement which I accept started with an'if' but does that mean normal human curiosity is now forbidden? Shouldn't we be allowed to ask such questions as:
Where does this event come from?
How does this event react to and influence the progression of cause and effect?
Where is the evidence for such an event?
Can this event be described in detail?
Is there any reason to think that this event actually exists/existed?

Of course, if you respond to this by suggesting that God is, or is instrumental in producing, this event, then exactly the same questions should surely be allowed by simply substituting the word 'god' for 'event'. I would suggest no positive progress has been made in answering such questions.

Of course, you may respond by suggesting that we don't know the answers to these questions. I would have no problem with that at all. After all, we can ask exactly the same questions about the big bang. However, in science, much positive progress has been made in response to such questions.

Perhaps, on reflection, you actually mean 'postive' rather than 'optimistic' when you seek to describe science based theories.

[bluehillside Retd.]

enki,

To take your last statement which I accept started with an'if' but does that mean normal human curiosity is now forbidden? Shouldn't we be allowed to ask such questions as:
Where does this event come from?
How does this event react to and influence the progression of cause and effect?
Where is the evidence for such an event?
Can this event be described in detail?
Is there any reason to think that this event actually exists/existed?

Of course, if you respond to this by suggesting that God is, or is instrumental in producing, this event, then exactly the same questions should surely be allowed by simply substituting the word 'god' for 'event'. I would suggest no positive progress has been made in answering such questions.

Of course, you may respond by suggesting that we don't know the answers to these questions. I would have no problem with that at all. After all, we can ask exactly the same questions about the big bang. However, in science, much positive progress has been made in response to such questions.

Perhaps, on reflection, you actually mean 'postive' rather than 'optimistic' when you seek to describe science based theories.

I think perhaps that the point rather is that a "don't know" does not somehow legitimise "God" as the answer. "God" is just a re-statement of "don't know".

[Enki]

enki,

I think perhaps that the point rather is that a "don't know" does not somehow legitimise "God" as the answer. "God" is just a re-statement of "don't know".

I agree, Blue. 'Don't know', on its own, legitimises nothing. My point is that science can legitimately use a 'don't know' when investigating phenomena for which there is at least some evidence. Hence, there is a great deal known about the 'big bang' but its origin is still in the realms of the 'don't know', notwithstanding various hypotheses for the event.

[Nearly Sane]

Science can be used to show how material entities react to events.  The optimism comes in assuming that this is sufficient to explain the occurrence of every event which has ever happened.

To illustrate simply, science can correctly predict how a moving billiard ball will react with the other balls on a table, but it can't be used to define the ultimate cause for the trajectory of the moving ball.  Optimism comes in the assumption that the ultimate case is just a chain of scientifically defined cause and effect events tracing back to the big bang with no outside interaction.  If outside interaction is used to explain the cause, then this must come from an event which was induced outside the physical cause and effect chain.

There is no such assumption. You are confusing methodological naturalism with philosophical naturalism. There is no 'optimism', indeed our use of the term is bizarre as it then implies that thinking there is some other cause is then 'pessimism'. Did you really mean to imply that your belief in your god is 'pessimistic'?

Your last sentence is meaningless since it seems to assume the need for cause and effect and reject it at the same time.

BTW I note that you edited my post to leave out the question below. Given that it was pointing out your continual evasion of the question, this feels quite dishonest to me.



What other methodology do you offer for evaluation of theories? (And note you have been asked for this methodology many times and haven't offered anything, so maybe this time deal with the question?)

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

#16255

I think perhaps that the point rather is that a "don't know" does not somehow legitimise "God" as the answer. "God" is just a re-statement of "don't know".

I think perhaps that the point rather is that a “don’t know” is just a euphemism for “I don’t know what natural cause is responsible”

Alternatively, I’ll break out the popcorn, sit back and see how you try to weasel out of your latest logical contradiction. See if you can do so by defending your position rather than hiding behind claims of fallacies based on an assumed position that is true.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sword,

I think perhaps that the point rather is that a “don’t know” is just a euphemism for “I don’t know what natural cause is responsible”

It’s also a statement that, in the absence of a method of any kind to distinguish claims of non-natural explanations from just guessing about stuff, those claims are themselves euphemisms for “I don’t know”.

Alternatively, I’ll break out the popcorn, sit back and see how you try to weasel out of your latest logical contradiction.

What "logical contradiction" do you think I’ve committed?

So far as I know the only logical fallacies here are your own (and there are lots of them), and I’ve already taken to trouble to correct you on them (see Reply 16227 for example). That you ignore the corrections and repeat your mistakes is a matter for you.

See if you can do so by defending your position rather than hiding behind claims of fallacies based on an assumed position that is true.

You seem very confused, Do you want to take a minute to unscramble your thinking and to try to express a coherent thought?

[Gordon]

#16255

I think perhaps that the point rather is that a “don’t know” is just a euphemism for “I don’t know what natural cause is responsible”

I think perhaps it just means 'don't know': as an absence of knowledge.

Alternatively, I’ll break out the popcorn, sit back and see how you try to weasel out of your latest logical contradiction. See if you can do so by defending your position rather than hiding behind claims of fallacies based on an assumed position that is true.

We know logic isn't your strong point but go for it and set out the details of this claimed logical contradiction. Pointing out your penchant for using fallacies isn't in any sense 'hiding': the problem is that you simply don't understand why your reasoning is flawed, and that is in spite of it being routinely pointed out to you.   

[Sebastian Toe]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-39482345

[SusanDoris]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-39482345

Excellent - many thanks for posting link. I shall be listening this evening.

I shall also be posting the link in other forums!!

Thanks to science and in particular medical treatments available today, I'm about to b processed rapidly through an efficient system to remove a lump which is where it shouldn't be! Benign or not, it will be entirely humans,  acquired knowledge and skill, and the NHS which I'll be relying on, not God, karma, alens or the supernatural for a result giving me at least a few more years to complete the learning of Tap Advanced 2 syllabus!!

ETA: That's a tangent, I know, but hope nobody minds my adding it!

[john]

Excuse me if I am being stupidly simplistic but....

I find this particular thread to be boring and intelligence insulting.

If AB is arguing that nothing came about without being willed into existence by God.

The sentence that ends that discussion absolutely and for ever is;

Okay so what made God?

[floo]

Excuse me if I am being stupidly simplistic but....

I find this particular thread to be boring and intelligence insulting.

If AB is arguing that nothing came about without being willed into existence by God.

The sentence that ends that discussion absolutely and for ever is;

Okay so what made God?

And the reply to that would be, 'god was always there', which makes no sense at all.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

And the reply to that would be, 'god was always there', which makes no sense at all.

Why is ''everything just popped out of nothing'' more sensible?
or the ''universe was always there''?

I would move that at base what makes them more sensible to the weird and wonderful denizens of this board is the idea that they do not involve God....and that's it.

[floo]

Why is ''everything just popped out of nothing'' more sensible?
or the ''universe was always there''?

I would move that at base what makes them more sensible to the weird and wonderful denizens of this board is the idea that they do not involve God....and that's it.

Who says the universe was always there?

[torridon]

Why is ''everything just popped out of nothing'' more sensible?
or the ''universe was always there''?
I would move that at base what makes them more sensible to the weird and wonderful denizens of this board is the idea that they do not involve God....and that's it.

'God' is more complex, and so fails the Ockham principle.  Complex things normally derive from simpler things, so for an origin of all things we should be looking for something irreducible and simple.

[ad_orientem]

'God' is more complex, and so fails the Ockham principle.  Complex things normally derive from simpler things, so for an origin of all things we should be looking for something irreducible and simple.

God is one.

[torridon]

God is one.

and there was me thinking you were a Trinitarian 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Why is ''everything just popped out of nothing'' more sensible?
or the ''universe was always there''?

I would move that at base what makes them more sensible to the weird and wonderful denizens of this board is the idea that they do not involve God....and that's it.

Then you would "move" wrongly. "God" just adds one more assumption to the mix while providing no explanatory force of its own. In response to your questions about "popping out of nothing"/"always there" when directed at "god" you might as well answer "God's dad" or some such. Letting your god off the hook of our don't knows about the universe is just special pleading - effectively, "it's magic innit".

It's also the god of the gaps fallacy by the way.

[bluehillside Retd.]

ad,

God is one.

One what?

[Enki]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-39482345

Heard the programme this morning. What DD said made a lot of sense to me. I enjoyed listening to it.

[bluehillside Retd.]

enki,

Heard the programme this morning. What DD said made a lot of sense to me. I enjoyed listening to it.

Caught the end of it, but I'll listen in full later on. Wouldn't it be nice though if Alan Burns listened to it and finally did the face palm when he realised he'd been barking up the wrong tree all these years. Perhaps every time from now on he tries his "soul" nonsense we should just post this link by way of reply?

[Enki]

enki,

Caught the end of it, but I'll listen in full later on. Wouldn't it be nice though if Alan Burns listened to it and finally did the face palm when he realised he'd been barking up the wrong tree all these years. Perhaps every time from now on he tries his "soul" nonsense we should just post this link by way of reply?

It would be, wouldn't it. However, with Alan, I think it would be a case of pissing in the wind, because he 'knows' he is following the one true way, and nothing will coax him to deviate from that path.

[floo]

God is one.

God is an just another idea.


If other intelligent life forms exist in the vast universe of ours I wonder what is their take on how it all came into being? You never know some might have already discovered its origins. If that is the case I suspect no deity will be the cause, but of course I could be wrong.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Then you would "move" wrongly. "God" just adds one more assumption to the mix while providing no explanatory force of its own. In response to your questions about "popping out of nothing"/"always there" when directed at "god" you might as well answer "God's dad" or some such. Letting your god off the hook of our don't knows about the universe is just special pleading - effectively, "it's magic innit".

It's also the god of the gaps fallacy by the way.

I'm sorry Hillside but you cannot have anything which pops out of nothing or always there and then claim that God cannot have those properties or that God does not exist because he has those properties. That is just the special pleading at the heart of your argument.

Science cannot elucidate the ''nothing'' out of which the universe would have popped anyway. So any proposal you or I make cannot appeal to science.

I'm afraid that leaves a simple act of devolving supernatural powers to nature justified only by the assumed need to eliminate God.

There is of course no appeal to Ockham's razor in which I would have to be multiplying entities beyond necessity. Demonstrate that if you think you are hard enough.

Neither is ''we don't know....therefore no God'' good enough.

The game I'm afraid was up for you 10 minutes after we started our correspondence on this forum all those years ago.