Theists: Please give me a reason to believe in your superpowered invisible overlord

[Stone]

I have a presentfor you.

Since all you are going to do is argue in a circle, and interpret any piece of history, philosophy, or theology as support for your "argument", no matter how narrowly you have to construe it, or how much of person's work you have to ignore to do so; I hereby cede to you the last word in this OT derail.

Should you choose to haul yourself back to the topic, I'll discuss it with you. I'll no longer play in your "iconoclastic theism" (as long as you get to be the sole arbiter of what constitutes "real iconoclasm", and "real theism") as the "only source" (as long as you get to ignore the top-down nature of your "argument") of "moral innovation? (as long as you get to decide which issues are "innovation" and ignore the rest) sandbox.

In the meantime, it would be...refreshing...to see any actual argument about why any person ought to believe in any 'god' (particularly given the quality of arguments raised in support of believing in it).

The Subject-Head asks for a reason to believe in this notion of deity. It doesn't ask for a proof. Distinct social improvements in attitudes toward the marginalized have stemmed from the very same innovators who've claimed intimate awareness of a brand of deity different from the surrounding culture. That puzzler provides a reason to give belief a second look. It does not provide a proof.

Plainly, expanding the circle of social acceptance for the marginalized only benefits society, making it less dysfunctional. Since it benefits society, the context in which such innovators first stick their necks out is suddenly relevant. Jonathan Heidt, an atheist, has also suggested there may be something socially useful in belief on precisely that count, of making things easier for the marginalized.

The problem is, I see no logical reason why woo about an invisible overlord should somehow make things easier for the marginalized. Neither did my parents or my own brother, all three of them atheists, as I've been for most of my life. Such a connection makes no sense on its face. Yet throughout history, the life stories of those who introduce new deities also shows them laboring for the marginalized in pioneering ways. That connection may make poor sense to me, but that's what history shows. Why that historical pattern? That's a question that needs to be researched by an entire interdisciplinary task force of far greater acumen than I could ever reach, geared toward concurrent brain, anthropological, psychological, evolutionary, biological, social, historical, textual, philological, neurological etc. research.

I always keep an eye out for pioneering nonbelievers -- like Ayan Hirsi Ali, for instance -- who may contribute significant work toward alleviating the sufferings of the marginalized. I don't rule out the possibility of such a pioneering nonbeliever emerging somewhere, somewhen. I admit it's frustrated me that, whether it's Hirsi Ali or whoever, every figure I've chased down like that has emerged as either autonomous in their social ethics or their take on woo. Never both. -- So far..............

That frustrating pattern provides a reason for a provisional conclusion that the double pioneers may be responding to something real. We won't know what that "something" is until the kind of rigorous research I outline above is initiated.

You can say all you like that I arbitrarily reject the Hirsi Alis, etc. Fact is, I don't. I still have a clear model in mind: the same model I pursued throughout my layman's research when an optimistic atheist (I consider it more optimistic to be an atheist than a theist). That model is some figure who would be the first to both flout her/his culture's theism and also her/his culture's callous treatment of the marginalized. I haven't found such a figure yet, as outlined in Section V of the survey. Some day, I may, and that could help debunk this whole line of reasoning.

Stone

 

[pakeha]

What's the difference between "an object of thought , entirely constructed in the mind" and something whose "essential concept is intellectually derived"?

The first is and is known to be a object of fancy. The second is and is intended to be a representation of some object which may exist in the external world.

[ . . .]Philosophy tells us that we are not in a position to say what exists or not. There, that is simple enough isn't it?[ . . .]

punshhh, one of those posts is not like the other.
How can we know something is an object of fancy, using your definitions?

 

[punshhh]

The HUGE difference is that there are pages, probably volumes, of equations based on observations that lead directly to the "singularity hypothesis".

Yes, but the leap from the Planck Epoc to the singularity, leaps from finite maths which can be applied to worldly things to an illogical bleary world of infinities. Scientists seem to be retreating from these absurdities. But what else do they propose? Wormholes, multiverses, unicorns?

Provide that sort of evidence for God or god or the Invisible Pink Unicorn and perhaps one could argue equivalency.

Until then, not so much.

There is a lot of baggage with the concept of god and so in philosophy it has to be pared down to its essential characteristics, which are debatable. But one can define some characteristics and explore them individually etc. In my eyes the issue boils down to agency, intelligent input. The theists propose an intelligent entity as the origin, the athiests propose unintelligent natural forces (they avoid an origin, usually).

But if one looks closer at the wording and meanings, there is cross over and ambiguities. "Intelligent entity" and "natural forces" could quite easily refer to the same thing, and the processes involved may be far removed from our anthropomorphic understanding.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

There is a lot of baggage with the concept of god and so in philosophy it has to be pared down to its essential characteristics, which are debatable.

It certainly is an easier task to debate characteristics rather than existence. But to debate characteristics rather than evidence of existence seems rather "cart before the horse". We could also debate about the "essential characteristics" of angels or demons or spirits or souls, but as long as these remain speculative entities, I hold discussing their "essential characteristics" is silly. Might as well debate the size and color of unicorns.

...the athiests propose unintelligent natural forces (they avoid an origin, usually).

No, they don't. It's an active area of study by physicists and astronomers and cosmologists, many of whom are atheists. No one is "avoiding an origin". If anyone is, it's theists who "special plead" away the origin of God.

 

[ehcks]

The Subject-Head asks for a reason to believe in this notion of deity. It doesn't ask for a proof.

For most people, that's the same thing. The only reason for me to believe something exists is evidence that it exists. Without that evidence, the only sane response is that it doesn't exist, regardless of whatever justifications you've made for yourself and your own belief.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Yes, but the leap from the Planck Epoc to the singularity, leaps from finite maths which can be applied to worldly things to an illogical bleary world of infinities. Scientists seem to be retreating from these absurdities. But what else do they propose? Wormholes, multiverses, unicorns?

Evidence of this actually being done by actual scientists would be a refreshing change, coming from you. Suppose you present some?

There is a lot of baggage with the concept of god and so in philosophy it has to be pared down to its essential characteristics, which are debatable. But one can define some characteristics and explore them individually etc. In my eyes the issue boils down to agency, intelligent input. The theists propose an intelligent entity as the origin, the athiests propose unintelligent natural forces (they avoid an origin, usually).

The leap form the assumption of an uncaused cause, an uncreated creator, an unevidenced intelligent designer to demonstrating its existence in reality leaps form interesting speculations to unsupported bald assertions and special pleading. It is the failure to either support,or retreat form, these absurdities that demonstrates that 'god' is not one iota less invented than the Unicorn.

It would be far more intellectually honest to "avoid an origin, usually" (could such a thing be demonstrated to be typical of atheists), than to invent intelligent agents to settle the issue to one's comfort, particularly when the invented agents have not, and cannot be, demonstrated to exist.

But if one looks closer at the wording and meanings, there is cross over and ambiguities. "Intelligent entity" and "natural forces" could quite easily refer to the same thing, and the processes involved may be far removed from our anthropomorphic understanding.

I see. As a theist, you are going to avoid the issue by defining it into something beyond our understanding. Is that how you avoid avoiding the issue?

I, for one, reject your facile claim that "natural forces" and "intelligent entity" can refer to the same thing, particularly when you claim your "intelligent entity" is "far removed from our anthropomorphic understanding".

 

[RoboTimbo]

Yes, but the leap from the Planck Epoc to the singularity, leaps from finite maths which can be applied to worldly things to an illogical bleary world of infinities. Scientists seem to be retreating from these absurdities. But what else do they propose? Wormholes, multiverses, unicorns?

Gods? Makes as much sense as unicorns unless you're engaging in special pleading.

There is a lot of baggage with the concept of god and so in philosophy it has to be pared down to its essential characteristics, which are debatable. But one can define some characteristics and explore them individually etc. In my eyes the issue boils down to agency, intelligent input. The theists propose an intelligent entity as the origin, the athiests propose unintelligent natural forces (they avoid an origin, usually).

We can also debate whether Spiderman or Batman would win a fight but they're fictional entities so we don't. You've run away from answering why you've imbued your fictional entity with intelligence when no theories for the origin of the universe require it.

But if one looks closer at the wording and meanings, there is cross over and ambiguities. "Intelligent entity" and "natural forces" could quite easily refer to the same thing, and the processes involved may be far removed from our anthropomorphic understanding.

Indeed, you can't really understand the IPUIMG with your naive special pleading.

 

[tsig]

Gods? Makes as much sense as unicorns unless you're engaging in special pleading.


We can also debate whether Spiderman or Batman would win a fight but they're fictional entities so we don't. You've run away from answering why you've imbued your fictional entity with intelligence when no theories for the origin of the universe require it.


Indeed, you can't really understand the IPUIMG with your naive special pleading.

Indeed if one claims to understand the IPU that is evidence they don't know anything of the IPU, never the less certain gifted groomers have gleaned the Noble Truths, these Truths are collected into a book called the Droppings of the IPU and is available on DVD for only $99.99.

 

[Stone]

For most people, that's the same thing. The only reason for me to believe something exists is evidence that it exists. Without that evidence, the only sane response is that it doesn't exist, regardless of whatever justifications you've made for yourself and your own belief.

It is more likely than not that something concrete does exist in order for this odd symbiotic relationship to develop between breakthroughs in social inclusiveness and personal claims that the culture has its deity all wrong. Why that consistent relationship? Is each pioneer responding to something inside his head only, or to something external? If it's something in the head, how come it's always in tandem with some expansion of the cultural ethic that ultimately proves useful to others? Since the new useful ethic and the personal claim of some new deity are always symbiotically linked, why are they symbiotically linked? How can one half of this symbiosis prove useful and the other not? If, OTOH, this symbiosis indicates something external instead, then how come only a tiny portion of humanity experiences the iconoclastic theist half of it? I know I've never experienced it. Very plainly, no one on this board has ever experienced it.

To explain this symbiosis, we need to show what both the inclusive urge and the iconoclastic theist urge might have in common. Since they evidently do go together, what is true of one has to be true of the other. So once we see the blatant usefulness of an expanding inclusiveness ethic, that still leaves unanswered just how the iconoclastic theist urge that always goes with it could possibly be useful? It surely isn't useful to the pioneer, since he usually gets into trouble for it!

If we explain it as all stemming from some delusion in his head, then how come the ethical-inclusive urge always proves useful to others? These are all obvious questions that have to be addressed. They won't go away.

Whenever I pose these questions on a religious board, the response is always an illogical "Go away, materialist creep." When I pose them on a rationalist board, the response is always an illogical "Stop rationalizing your woo". I'm sorry if these questions make both fundies and atheists nervous. But they are based on history -- on aspects of history that brainwashed robots on both sides of a sick, sick divide here try to ignore, usually out of cowardice or laziness.

I've given the parameters of -- a few of the -- obvious questions that come to mind in the face of this symbiotic pattern. Although final answers will have to await further research by brain scientists who are not afraid of their own shadow -- and of any fundie or atheist "friends" who may make their life hell -- it is already possible to weigh certain alternatives right now as to what might be causing this symbiosis.

That is, it's possible to weigh certain alternatives right now if people weren't such lazy cowards.

Stone

 

[Donn]

If it's something in the head, how come it's always in tandem with some expansion of the cultural ethic that ultimately proves useful to others?

You have not shown this always claim.

Other options exist. Someone who advances the "cultural ethic"* may be driven by any number of motivations, none of which need be a deity that exists.

Do you go sharpshooting in Texas much?

Look, this is not personal. We'd be interested in your argument if it were shaping into something. It seems not to be.


* This phrase alone is so fuzzy as to be useless.

 

[ehcks]

It is more likely than not that something concrete does exist in order for this odd symbiotic relationship to develop between breakthroughs in social inclusiveness and personal claims that the culture has its deity all wrong.

Just gonna have to stop you here.

The fact that people are consistently wrong is not evidence that they're actually right.

 

[Stone]

You have not shown this always claim.

Other options exist. Someone who advances the "cultural ethic"* may be driven by any number of motivations, none of which need be a deity that exists.

I was in the process of showing the paper trail for all this when I was summarily halted. I don't want to be told I'm off-topic. Obviously, this is emphatically not off-topic. But sophistry will get you everywhere, and sophistry is effective. Right now, it's helped halt "this always claim" from being presented here. Thanks for nothing.

I'm told I'm a "materialist creep" on religious boards; I'm told I'm "rationalizing woo" on rationalist boards. But this history is more concrete, since it deals with concrete events that have befallen our own species here on Earth, than any of the usual airy-fairy nonsense about the law of thermodynamics or "creation" (quite a number of these ethics pioneers don't even ascribe creation to their deity at all, equating generation of both the universe and their "deity" as simultaneous instead).

I'm inviting others to give another interpretation of this data, but plainly, no one else can have that opportunity to provide that if I'm not allowed to present it. I've already presented 3 or 4 installments............... There are 12.

I don't view deity as the only explanation. I view this pattern as merely the only set of data out there that may make the notion of deity less than totally nonsensical. That's all. But there's another obvious explanation: It could just as well point to something quirky in the human brain. When I say all this on religious boards, the response always is "You and your materialism; get lost" and the response on rationalist boards is always "You and your woo; get lost". Both sides see a straw man and their enemy in what I'm describing, or they pretend there's no pattern at all.

Stone

 

[Stone]

Just gonna have to stop you here.

The fact that people are consistently wrong is not evidence that they're actually right.

No, it isn't. You're absolutely right. Thank goodness someone is actually following what I'm saying. What still needs weighing here is just how come all these ethics paradigms that are in tandem with these counter-cultural deity ideas always seem to prove right. These new ethics packages do benefit their cultures enormously in each case and promote human happiness. Can we be so sure that the ethics packages are so right but the deity packages all wrong? Or vice versa: If the deity packages are all wrong after all, why are the ethics packages of such benefit?

The two phenomena need to be weighed together. No one has done that. The religious are too hidebound because they're allergic to the notion it might all be a survival mechanism of some kind in the brain; the rationalists are too hidebound because they don't like dealing with something that could involve external stimulus.

Stone

 

[Stone]

Since you have carefully cherry picked your subjects and warped what they said to meet your criteria there is no pattern to be explained.

I've not cherry-picked my subjects. I spent years chasing down every lead I could find, especially in the skeptic demographic, being one myself. That is all explained in Sections VI and following.

I still don't view it as a slam dunk that there is a deity. I view it as a slam dunk there there's been a strong relationship between personal attempts to alleviate human suffering and personal experiences of "the divine", whatever that is. That symbiosis doesn't automatically prove there is anything divine. But if these alleviation packages have helped humanity flourish at all, then it's passed time that we develop honest models tracing the connections between such alleviation and "hallucinations" of deity.

Stone

 

[Donn]

Stone,
Seriously, start a new thread if you are not receiving justice in this one.

Also, maybe a table would help you summarize your thesis. Column for index number, name, country, date, ethical advance, religious advance. Something like that.

 

[Dr. Keith]

I've not cherry-picked my subjects. I spent years chasing down every lead I could find, especially in the skeptic demographic, being one myself. That is all explained in Sections VI and following.

I still don't view it as a slam dunk that there is a deity. I view it as a slam dunk there there's been a strong relationship between personal attempts to alleviate human suffering and personal experiences of "the divine", whatever that is. That symbiosis doesn't automatically prove there is anything divine. But if these alleviation packages have helped humanity flourish at all, then it's passed time that we develop honest models tracing the connections between such alleviation and "hallucinations" of deity.

Stone

In religious societies any change will encompass religious aspects. This will hold true even in secular societies where religion is common.

It is a bit like saying every major change in the law involved lawyers. That doesn't prove that the law is divine in nature. Quite the opposite actually. It proves that the law is human, and as such reflects our then current understanding of what is best as humans.

That major changes in the human condition are coincident with updating of theological ideas is more likely evidence that religion reflects humanity than the invisible hand of god pushing humanity forward through changes in religion.

 

[Slowvehicle]

In religious societies any change will encompass religious aspects. This will hold true even in secular societies where religion is common.

It is a bit like saying every major change in the law involved lawyers. That doesn't prove that the law is divine in nature. Quite the opposite actually. It proves that the law is human, and as such reflects our then current understanding of what is best as humans.

That major changes in the human condition are coincident with updating of theological ideas is more likely evidence that religion reflects humanity than the invisible hand of god pushing humanity forward through changes in religion.

Wull, yeah--but are they iconoclastic lawyers?

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Stone,
Seriously, start a new thread if you are not receiving justice in this one.

Also, maybe a table would help you summarize your thesis. Column for index number, name, country, date, ethical advance, religious advance. Something like that.

I previously recommended both a thread of his own and a concise thesis, maybe in outline format.

As it is, there's just too much to read and it comes across as unfocused and rambling, and only marginally tangential to the topic of this tread.

At least to me!

 

[ehcks]

No, it isn't. You're absolutely right. Thank goodness someone is actually following what I'm saying. What still needs weighing here is just how come all these ethics paradigms that are in tandem with these counter-cultural deity ideas always seem to prove right. These new ethics packages do benefit their cultures enormously in each case and promote human happiness. Can we be so sure that the ethics packages are so right but the deity packages all wrong? Or vice versa: If the deity packages are all wrong after all, why are the ethics packages of such benefit?

The two phenomena need to be weighed together. No one has done that. The religious are too hidebound because they're allergic to the notion it might all be a survival mechanism of some kind in the brain; the rationalists are too hidebound because they don't like dealing with something that could involve external stimulus.

Stone

I would say it mostly comes from the urge to assign agency to unexplained events. It was an evolutionary advantage to believe that the sound of shaking grass was actually a threat and not just the wind. It led to many false positives, and perhaps some stress, but when there actually was a predator stalking you you had a higher chance of survival.

Gods are simply the ultimate agency assigned to explain every unexplained thing. Especially the thought-to-be unexplainable things. Questions like "Why do we exist?" get answered by "Whatever I say God says."

Answering it like that is important. No god has ever said anything. Everything ascribed to gods was stated or written by a human, often enough as a way to increase their own personal power over other people.

There is no evidence that gods exist. There is instead evidence that gods are human creations. First to explain the unknown. Second as a means to control other people.

 

[punshhh]

It certainly is an easier task to debate characteristics rather than existence. But to debate characteristics rather than evidence of existence seems rather "cart before the horse". We could also debate about the "essential characteristics" of angels or demons or spirits or souls, but as long as these remain speculative entities, I hold discussing their "essential characteristics" is silly. Might as well debate the size and color of unicorns.



No, they don't. It's an active area of study by physicists and astronomers and cosmologists, many of whom are atheists. No one is "avoiding an origin". If anyone is, it's theists who "special plead" away the origin of God.

I'm off on my hol's again for a week
.