AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence

[Walter]

Doing business with people who are different is usually hard work. Business is often more about relationships than anything else - people like to do business with people they like, trust, who they think can relate to them and understand their issues.

You could think of it as a useful training ground in the art of learning to get on with different people who have different customs and practices. It's the same for everyone doing business. Playing golf or corporate hospitality or going to the pub seems a weird way of doing business to me but there you go.

I think the thought process people use to justify their behaviour is fascinating - regardless of whether they claim to be religious or not - it's all down to their own interpretations of morality. We all have arbitrary lines we don't cross.

thanks for the advice Gabby, I don't need it now  however I was very successful at my job and made a bit of money at it.
Because of the nature of my business it was very easy to break the law and not be discovered and they knew that too. I was very often put in some very compromising situations which led to conflict. So there was always a fine line that I was constantly aware of .I won their trust in most cases however I did not trust them as far as could throw a chapatti.

[wigginhall]

I think inner conviction and personal experience are fine, as I have said, my local shaman is great to behold, when she is holding forth.  However, what is quite weird in these exchanges is the use of pseudo-science, or half-baked scientific ideas, to justify these experiences.   I don't quite get how this came about, is it a kind of bastardized positivism?  Why dress up your experiences with Dunning-Kruger?

[Enki]

But how many favourable coincidences does it take to nurture life?
And how many favourable coincidences will it take to show evidence of divine intervention?

You mean like the five big mass extinction events? Whoops. sorry. I thought you said how many unfavourable coincidences does it take to destroy life.

[wigginhall]

Come on, that was Satan. 

[Walter]

Some people like wishy washy stuff and get great joy from it.  If others ask for the secret of that joy which is real to them they might feel obliged to share it with those others.  I am sure that they do expect ridicule both from the crooked and the straightforward people.  Many have endured a crown of thorns in some form or other.  They often see it as a test of their faith and simply forgive those who can only express themselves in ridicule.

Okay mike, thanks for that .

I enjoy ridiculing them, its how I'm made , a fundamental part of me which I cannot deny. 

[ekim]

ekim,

Which is fine when the person who thinks he’s “experienced” something also says, “of course that’s entirely a personal belief so there’s no reason for anyone else to think I’ve experienced a “true for you too” god, let alone a reason for my personal beliefs to be privileged in the public square for example in education, in the legislature or in media access”.

I’m indifferent to such people because their faiths are no-one’s business but their own. Trouble is though, often those with personal experiences also insist that they must be true for me too, and so insist too that their claims should be privileged over, say, just guessing.

Yes, that is the downside of religious practices when they are used to exert influence and power over others and employ indoctrination methods.  For the same reason I suppose we should allow those with a personal belief not to be subjected to the indoctrination of those with other views.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

thanks for the advice Gabby, I don't need it now  however I was very successful at my job and made a bit of money at it.
Because of the nature of my business it was very easy to break the law and not be discovered and they knew that too. I was very often put in some very compromising situations which led to conflict. So there was always a fine line that I was constantly aware of .I won their trust in most cases however I did not trust them as far as could throw a chapatti.

It wasn't meant to be advice but ok. I just meant it's part of the game of doing business - people are different and it's a game to find the common purpose that allows a mutually beneficial business arrangement to be negotiated. Some people take a longer term view and take the approach that they have a brand's integrity and public image to develop and protect which will generate more sustainable income in the longer run - also maybe their business represents who they are what they stand for or maybe they have a governing body they can be reported to. Not that this stopped MPs from fiddling expenses.

And some people take the shorter-term approach of quick profits and that if you don't ask you don't get. And some people fall somewhere in between.

[Walter]

It wasn't meant to be advice but ok. I just meant it's part of the game of doing business - people are different and it's a game to find the common purpose that allows a mutually beneficial business arrangement to be negotiated. Some people take a longer term view and take the approach that they have a brand's integrity and public image to develop and protect which will generate more sustainable income in the longer run - also maybe their business represents who they are what they stand for or maybe they have a governing body they can be reported to. Not that this stopped MPs from fiddling expenses.

And some people take the shorter-term approach of quick profits and that if you don't ask you don't get. And some people fall somewhere in between.

very wise Gabby, I like it. Especially the last bit.

[torridon]

But how many favourable coincidences does it take to nurture life?
And how many favourable coincidences will it take to show evidence of divine intervention?

How complex we are is probably a measure of how rare those required conditions are.  But there again the universe is inconceivably vast and ancient so even the rarest of circumstances will occur somewhere at some time.

You'd be better off backing the cosmic fine tuning argument, rather than this curious hotchpotch you push of a god that creates a universe inhospitable to life and then has to constantly use his powers to fiddle with it fixing planets and correcting orbits, it just makes your god look so incompetent.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

There is no evidence that can be provided in the manner that you would wish it because what AB is saying is experiential to him i.e. an inner experience.  The word 'evidence' itself is based upon the Latin 'to look outwards'.  It's a pity that there isn't a word 'invidence' for looking within.  As a mild example, I would find it difficult to provide evidence that I dreamed a particular dream last night.  As regards the alleged declaration of an experience of God, you would have to take it on trust and if you wanted to experience the same then you would need to have faith in a particular way/path/method and follow it.  The Christians have their 'way', the Muslims have their 'way' the Hindus have their 'ways', the Buddhists have their 'ways' and so on.  Thinking and reasoning is likely to take you further from those 'ways' as they are generally associated with inner stillness rather than agitation.

Agreed. Mindfulness seems to be a modern way/path/method to experience something - possibly less anxiety. They tried teaching it during a couple of lessons when my daughter was in primary school. PSHE classes explore ethics and morality and feelings without anyone getting excited about indoctrination, despite the pressure put on children to conform to a certain way of thinking. Not entirely sure why teaching children about gods gets some people so worked up to the point of generalising about the dangers of religion, but that's their phobia to deal with as they see fit.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi GAbs,

Not entirely sure why teaching children about gods gets some people so worked up to the point of generalising about the dangers of religion, but that's their phobia to deal with as they see fit.

I'm not sure that teaching people "about gods" does get anyone worked up does it? After all, it's just an aspect of social anthropology. What does get some of us worked up though is the teaching of those gods as if they were facts, as much facts as the Egyptians building the pyramids or the formation of oxbow lakes.

And the problem with that - or actually one of several problems - is that it does children a disservice. If we expect them to believe faith claims to be facts, how then should we arm them against any other claims of fact, however bogus or dangerous, when they're asserted on the same basis?

[Dicky Underpants]

You mean like the five big mass extinction events? Whoops. sorry. I thought you said how many unfavourable coincidences does it take to destroy life.

Are well, you see, God was just practising. Despite his famed omniscience and omnipotence, he never could quite get the direction of evolution right. And of course, it took him several million years each time to realise he'd been going in mostly the wrong direction all the time.
Unless of course it was Satan (as wiggi sarkily suggests), but this Satan must be an entity of far greater power than the New Testament cracks him up to be. Maybe the Manichees were right after all (he also said sarkily).

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Hi GAbs,

I'm not sure that teaching people "about gods" does get anyone worked up does it? After all, it's just an aspect of social anthropology. What does get some of us worked up though is the teaching of those gods as if they were facts, as much facts as the Egyptians building the pyramids or the formation of oxbow lakes.

And the problem with that - or actually one of several problems - is that it does children a disservice. If we expect them to believe faith claims to be facts, how then should we arm them against any other claims of fact, however bogus or dangerous, when they're asserted on the same basis?

Hi BHS

I think the social control of religion is changing - perhaps now it is being replaced by the social control of political correctness and social media. I don't think religion creates any special problem for people - at least not a problem that wouldn't just manifest itself in some other non-religious way.

Regarding the disservice to children - maybe it's a difference in parenting approaches. I think children, depending on their personalities, will appreciate the complexity and the contradictions in morality, including religious morality, at different rates as they get older, their brains develop and they learn to cope with various adult life experiences that they are usually protected from in childhood (if they are lucky).

Until then each interpretation of god is probably just an easy short-hand for all kinds of stuff. Parenting can be simpler if they just do as they are told via gods while their brains are too undeveloped and their lives too inexperienced to comprehend certain complexities. Hopefully this changes as they mature, and I think being exposed to atheism is part of that development process, and eventually they reach that arbitrary magic age where they are legally and morally accountable for their actions, detach from their parents, and decide for themselves how they want to interpret their experiences along the way, what their identity is, and what community they want to join. 

[torridon]

Can you be certain that it is the unguided forces of the cosmos which have produced these pockets of increasing complexity on our planet?  Evidence shows that unguided forces produce increasing chaos rather than increasing complexity.  We have no evidence that these pockets of increasing complexity exist elsewhere in the cosmos....

Atomic matter is more complex than the plasma from which it formed; molecular matter is more complex than the atomic matter from which it formed; long chain organic molecules are more complex than simple molecular matter.  I don't know where you get this idea there is no evidence of increasing complexity - the evidence is well known and understood.  The primary forces of nature - gravity, electromagnetism and the nuclears conspire to create greater complexity from simpler constituents and this is balanced by the tendency of thermodynamics to break order down.  All this happens according to well understood unguided insentient deterministic principles. No magic required.

[torridon]

Your honesty is appreciated here Torridon…

I would give more consideration to the something from nothing side if I didn't see the concept appearing to be contradicted by observation and other areas of science.

On the science side, I could use e.g. from Physics, Newton’s conservation of xxx laws from Physics, or Chemistry, where something does appear to come from nothing (e.g. the order from disorder in a snowflake), something is given up in order for this to happen, namely heat energy.

On the observation side, complexity can come from something less complex (no problem with that), but either there is some guiding influence for this to happen and/or the ability is there to do so from the start.

Personally, I don’t see theism avoiding the challenge of the regression as there is one on either side of the debate. The theistic solution is to have a first cause that is eternal (without beginning or end) therefore needs no cause itself. The alternative is the uncaused cause. Personally, I go with the former.

You frame this as two equally valid responses to a hard question; I don't see them as equal at all. Something from nothing is not a regression, whereas something from something more complex is.  Something from nothing might require us to posit some no-thing eternal; the laws of logic could be said to be eternal - they are a-temporal and a-spatial. Contrast that with theism's God - a complex sentient human-like eternal being is far more problematic to conceive of than simple eternal insentient logic.  Sentience implies surrounding context - what was this being sentient of back in eternity before there was space and time as we know it.  Introducing something contextual and complex like sentience into your first cause creates more problems than it solves. Envisaging something from pure logic is not easy, granted, but we have pointers from science in that direction already, quantum mechanics for instance demonstrates that there is no such thing as 'nothing' anyhow, contrary to our intuitions. Thermodynamics, the overarching trajectory of entropy is really only the application of statistical probability to the distribution of matter.  Again, boiling down to simple logic.  What is your justification for offending that nice Mr Ockham by opting for the theism solution, which though superficially seems simple and appealing, is really far more convoluted when scrutinised ?

[Walter]

Torri
it seems to me that religious people think there is a debate which implies there are at least two sides to it. And that their 'argument' has equal value and requires respect because of it.
Well, there isn't and they have no argument however hard they try with their vacuous evidence.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

AB,

That's a logical error called circular reasoning. You'll also find that the muslim says, "you ask Allah for the gift of discernment", the leprechaunist says, "you ask Colin, the King of the Leprechauns for the gift of discernment", the etc etc.

That's your problem if think you've experienced a "true for you too" god. The other nine people also think they've experienced "true for you" somethings. Absent any method to validate it, "the gift of discernment" just means "something I really think to be true", which helps you not at all.   

Anybody who has actually studied religions knows that THERE ARE DIFFERENCES between them. I'm not at all sure there is a Holy spirit equivalent in Islam who gives charismatic gifts. The only gift Colin gives his followers is the gift of category fucking if you are anything to go by.

[SusanDoris]

Torri
it seems to me that religious people think there is a debate which implies there are at least two sides to it. And that their 'argument' has equal value and requires respect because of it.
Well, there isn't and they have no argument however hard they try with their vacuous evidence.

That's exactly it, isn't it? Every time I see the argument presented as a 50/50 likelihood or not, I point out that this is not so.

[Gordon]

The theistic solution is to have a first cause that is eternal (without beginning or end) therefore needs no cause itself.

Which is no solution and involves begging the question, which is a fallacy.

The alternative is the uncaused cause.

Which is a false dichotomy. By the way you've missed out 'don't know' as an option.

Personally, I go with the former.

No doubt, which is no surprise since you seem fond of fallacies.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Which is no solution and involves begging the question, which is a fallacy.

WTF?

[wigginhall]

The 'something from nothing' idea is cited by some Christians with bated breath, as if here there is some deadly argument against  certain cosmological ideas.   In fact, they are displaying a kind of naive Dunning Kruger effect - I mean they are talking bollocks.   How many rest on an in-depth knowledge of cosmology, mathematics, and physics?   Not many, I think.   It's another example of diluted sciencey stuff, or half-baked ideas.   If somebody can oppose  the idea of 'something from nothing' by means of a series of arguments, which are based on genuine scientific findings, go for it, with citations please.   

[Walter]

WTF?

eh! what?
perhaps there is a switch in your brain which requires flicking to the ON position

No offence....

[Gordon]

WTF?

In essence Sword is commiting one of the fallacies found in the KCA.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

In essence Sword is commiting one of the fallacies found in the KCA.

And how would that be?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The 'something from nothing' idea is cited by some Christians with bated breath, as if here there is some deadly argument against  certain cosmological ideas.   In fact, they are displaying a kind of naive Dunning Kruger effect - I mean they are talking bollocks.   How many rest on an in-depth knowledge of cosmology, mathematics, and physics?   Not many, I think.   It's another example of diluted sciencey stuff, or half-baked ideas.   If somebody can oppose  the idea of 'something from nothing' by means of a series of arguments, which are based on genuine scientific findings, go for it, with citations please.

Have you been on the old alphabet soup again Wigginhall?