The No argument argument.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Professor Gary Gutting examines the antitheist argument that there are no arguments for God and argumentum ad ridiculum here.

http://tinyurl.com/olenwe5

[SqueakyVoice]

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...?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

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.

[SqueakyVoice]

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."

[Walt Zingmatilder]

So someone else has lots of reasonable arguments

Yes.......but not Dawkins.

[Outrider]

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.

[jeremyp]

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.

[Ricky Spanish]

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!!

[Gonnagle]

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 )

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.

[Gonnagle]

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.

[Outrider]

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.

[Outrider]

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.

#

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.

[Ricky Spanish]

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.

[wigginhall]

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. 

[Nearly Sane]

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. 

[wigginhall]

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. 

[Nearly Sane]

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.

[Gonnagle]

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 not to worry, I will work it out in my own sweet time


Gonnagle.

[Andy]

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.

[Nearly Sane]

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

[Gonnagle]

Dear Andy,

So God has thoughts.

Gonnagle.

[wigginhall]

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.).

[Shaker]

Ah, the good old wonky sensus divinitatis beloved of William Lane Craig.

[BashfulAnthony]

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.

[Jack Knave]

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.