• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

A beautiful argument for naturalism from Michael Shermer

RandFan said:
Agreed though I'm not exactly certain of the relevance. If you sucked out all of the space and stacked up all of the matter you would have one incomprehensibly large thing.
Click to expand...

And only a fraction of that large thing makes "us" and what we know. Pretty extraordinary, no?

There is no singular way of looking at this, is my conclusion. I'm not discounting your ideas outright by the way.

-Elliot
 
KingMerv00 said:
Still wondering why I should consider supernaturalism.
Click to expand...

To pass the time?

In my opinion, don't. This will manifest itself in a complete absence of any commentary towards anything supernatural. Agreed? I'll be keeping score...

-Elliot
 
elliotfc said:
And only a fraction of that large thing makes "us" and what we know. Pretty extraordinary, no?
Click to expand...
Extra-ordinary, yes. I'm not sure what significance to draw from that.

There is no singular way of looking at this, is my conclusion. I'm not discounting your ideas outright by the way.
Click to expand...
That's cool.
 
MrFrankZito said:


"What science tells us is that we are but one among hundreds of millions of species that evolved over the course of three and a half billion years on one tiny planet among many orbiting an ordinary star, itself one of possibly billions of solar systems in an ordinary galaxy that contains hundreds of billions of stars, itself located in a cluster of galaxies not so different from millions of other galaxy clusters, themselves whirling away from one another in an expanding cosmic bubble universe that very possibly is only one among a near infinite number of bubble universes. Is it really possible that this entire cosmological multiverse was designed and exists for one tiny subgroup of a single species on one planet in a lone galaxy in that solitary bubble universe? It seems unlikely." (In the hardcover edition, pages 160-161.)

Never has insignificance been so exhilarating.

________________________________

My Case Against God
Click to expand...


It may be a beautiful argument (for some) but it's weak, anyway far from making supernaturalism really less probable (and far from justifying the common view among atheists that all rational people should adopt the same view).

We must not forget that, after all, the accepted scientific theories, even Darwinian evolution, are fully compatible with the existence of a Creator (good or evil) so that, at most, we can accept methodological naturalism as the first choice methodology in science.

I'd rather rally to the view that behind the reality we observe could be anything (yes even some variants of solipsism are still candidates), it's very difficult to justify a strong foundationalism here, a critical philosophy (without a too strong authoritarianism and without strong foundationalism) is much more appropriate.
 
Last edited:
metacristi said:
We must not forget that, after all, the accepted scientific theories, even Darwinian evolution, are fully compatible with the existence of a Creator (good or evil).
Click to expand...
So what? The quote from Shermer is decribed as an "argument for naturalism" not a proof that all other alternatives are impossible. It makes naturalism seem highly plausible and believable and makes theism seem silly. But no, it doesn't disprove it. Perhaps the universe is rather silly.

Let's try to imagine what the act of "creation" would entail, given what we know about the big bang. We know that the early universe was in an extremely uniform state i.e. it was very simple and ordered. The creative part would have been selecting the basic rules of physics to give a universe that was capable (eventually, in some far corner) of developing complex things like human beings all by itself. But this is a very different thing from actually creating all the plants and animals in detail, as in the Bible. Such a creator isn't responsible for any of the particulars of how things are on Earth, just for the range of possible ways that they could have come out. And he has no involvement with the universe after its creation, and so presumably no interest in it which makes him a strangely unmotivated creator. Maybe we should think of him as someone who created a universe once and has now moved on to other things.

Or maybe moved on to other universes. If you live forever and so can have and infinite number of tries, how smart would you have to be to create a universe like this one? About as smart as the famous monkeys with the typewriters. In fact a blind random process could do just as good a job.
 
I guess the answer is Yes, some people do consider intelligence supernatural.
 
Foster Zygote said:
Dawkins states clearly that the biomorph program is only a simple example of how selection works. He plainly states that in the biomorph system he is acting as a selector in place of natural selection. If you've actually read The Blind Watchmaker then you are aware of the great detail he then goes into as explaination for how natural selection works. I can't believe you're attacking biomorphs as though they were the theory of natural selection.
Click to expand...

It's been a while since I checked in with this thread, an my oh my, the joint has been jumping! I'm tempted to shout from the sidelines (à la Firesign Theatre) "What is reality?!" and then run. But I won't. Yet. (You have been warned...hehehehe...)

Seriously, I quoted the above, because I can't even count the number of times I've heard people attack biomorphs as an attempted refutation of that gorgeously reasoned book. So I just wanted to thank you for making the point that needed to be made. :)
 
KingMerv00 said:
(Ignoring somewhat insulting non sequitur.)

STILL wondering why I should consider supernaturalism.
Click to expand...

People who are content with naturalism don't have much of a reason to *need* to consider supernaturalism. Some actually do consider it, if not most, if only to be able to interact with those who accept some variation of supernaturalism.

-Elliot
 
elliotfc said:
People who are content with naturalism don't have much of a reason to *need* to consider supernaturalism. Some actually do consider it, if not most, if only to be able to interact with those who accept some variation of supernaturalism.

-Elliot
Click to expand...

I suppose I am asking for a good, logical reason to believe in the supernatural.
 
T'ai Chi said:
You brought it up, you tell us.
Click to expand...

No, he did not bring it up. You did. What I'm not sure of is whether you keep answering questions with non sequitur questions of your own because you can't construct an argument or because you're being deliberately obtuse.

Steven
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom