Can theists be rational?

Bri said:
I can agree with that. Garbage in, garbage out. In this case, any specific values assigned to the probabilities are speculative at best.

Same could be said of other similar arguments though, such as those based on the Drake equation. Some of the values given to the variables are speculative.

So the question of relevance to this thread becomes is it irrational to use such arguments to support a belief for which there is little or no other evidence?

-Bri
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The critical difference with the Drake equation is we have plenty of examples of life existing in the universe, some of it intelligent.

We have no examples of gods.
 
Along those lines I have another question:

Doesn't this argument contain a hidden assumption that dualism is possible (and even probable)?

If life is more likely with a designer, then that designer must either be material and alive or be non-material. If non-material, then how is interaction possible to initiate life in the first place?

If interaction is not possible between incommensurate substances (which seems to be true by their definition), doesn't that make that part of the equation equal to zero (making the whole thing undefined)? In other words, there isn't even the possibility that life from a designer could be, unless the designer is material, in which case s/he is alive, so the case is already proved.

It's either that or we believe in magic. How can you ever assign a probability for magic?
 
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Ivor the Engineer said:
The critical difference with the Drake equation is we have plenty of examples of life existing in the universe, some of it intelligent.

We have no examples of gods.
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Agreed, but the problem is that any value assigned to several of the terms of the Drake equation are just speculation.

We don't know the specific conditions here that gave rise to intelligent life, nor do we know how close the conditions would have to be elsewhere to give rise to intelligent life.

-Bri
 
Bri said:
I don't think we have much of a clue as to the probabilities of the universe supporting life, with or without a god.
Darat said:
Really? ;)
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Bri, come on. It's an empirical fact that the probability is 1.

We've been over this so many times.

We know that life does exist in the universe.
We know the minimal requirements for life including water, carbon and other elements.
We know those elements exist in abundance in the universe.
We know that there are 100,000,000 stars in our galaxy.
We know that planets are likely common.
We know that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in our universe.
 
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I was editing. Sorry.
  • We know that life does exist in the universe.
  • We know the minimal requirements for life including water, carbon and other elements.
  • We know these elements exist in abundance in the universe.
  • We know that there are 100,000,000 stars in our galaxy.
  • We know that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in our universe.
  • We know that planets are likely common.
These are known facts that can be used to gauge some degree of probability.

Compare that to what we know about god.

ZERO.
 
RandFan said:
I was editing. Sorry.
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Not a problem.

  • We know that life does exist in the universe.
  • We know the minimal requirements for life including water, carbon and other elements.
  • We know these elements exist in abundance in the universe.
  • We know that there are 100,000,000 stars in our galaxy.
  • We know that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in our universe.
  • We know that planets are likely common.
These are known facts that can be used to gauge some degree of probability.

Compare that to what we know about god.

ZERO.
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See my response to Ivor above.

-Bri
 
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Bri said:
Agreed, but the problem is that any value assigned to several of the terms of the Drake equation are just speculation.

We don't know the specific conditions here that gave rise to intelligent life, nor do we know how close the conditions would have to be elsewhere to give rise to intelligent life.

-Bri
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But we can make reasonable assumptions based on what we do know (see my list). There are no such assumptions to make when it comes to god. We don't know if a god has ever existed or not. We don't know what the conditions are for a god to exist. We know that life has a probability of 1 so that, along with everything else, what we do know makes for a pretty good estimation that it is greater than zero. The question becomes how much greater than zero and how many instances.

I'm currently reading Innumeracy. One of the problems of humans is their inability to comprehend large numbers. We find life on earth unlikely given all of the requirements for life but once we understand the very large numbers at work to give rise to the probability of life then it's not simply speculation to say the likelyhood of life in the universe beyond the earth is greater than zero.
 
We do know the conditions that appear to be required for consciousness-- and so far that involves material-- a material brain to be exact.

To me, imagining consciousness with no "material" doesn't compute... it's akin to sound in a vacuum-- a logical absurdity by definiton. How would anyone know about it or distinguish it from imaginary entities?
 
RandFan said:
But we can make reasonable assumptions based on what we do know (see my list).
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How "reasonable" those assumptions are is up for debate I would imagine. Some of the terms of Drake's equation are little more than speculation.

According to Wikipedia:

Criticism of the Drake equation follows mostly from the observation that several terms in the equation are largely or entirely based on conjecture. Thus the equation cannot be used to draw firm conclusions of any kind. As T.J. Watson states:[13]

The Drake equation consists of a large number of probabilities multiplied together. Since each factor is guaranteed to be somewhere between 0 and 1, the result is also guaranteed to be a reasonable-looking number between 0 and 1. Unfortunately, all the probabilities are completely unknown, making the result worse than useless.​
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There is considerable disagreement on the values of most of these parameters, which accounts for the wide range of results that are considered "reasonable" by different people.

We know that life has a probability of 1 so that, along with everything else, what we do know makes for a pretty good estimation that it is greater than zero.
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Greater than zero just means it's not impossible. We also know that the probability of the existence of a god is greater than zero, so that's not really saying much.

-Bri
 
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articulett said:
We do know the conditions that appear to be required for consciousness-- and so far that involves material-- a material brain to be exact.

To me, imagining consciousness with no "material" doesn't compute... it's akin to sound in a vacuum-- a logical absurdity by definiton. How would anyone know about it or distinguish it from imaginary entities?
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Spinkled pixie dust? You know like how they blow talcum powder over the laser beams and the particles magically stay in the air allowing Katherine Zeta Jones to steal the diamonds or whatever. Yeah, I'm taking my pixie dust and going hunting for disembodied spirits.
 
Bri said:
How "reasonable" those assumptions are is up for debate I would imagine. Some of the terms of Drake's equation are little more than speculation.
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Watson passed away in 1956. He was neither a cosmologist, statician or mathmatician. I don't know when he made this quoate but if he made it on his death bed then I'm affraid our understanding has grown quite a bit in 63 years including a significant increase in the number of estimated galaxies and the discovery of exo planets.

You'll need to do a bit better than an argument from authority based on a 60+ year quote of someone who isn't even an exepert in any field that would lend credence to his opinion.
 
Bri said:
Greater than zero just means it's not impossible. We also know that the probability of the existence of a god is greater than zero, so that's not really saying much.
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We don't know anything about god. Nothing. God is as possible as anything not defined as logically impossible.

There is a huge difference between god and the possibility of life (our last debate was about inteligent life so I'm assuming this is what you mean). They simply can't be equated. We know what life is. Whe know what it requires. We know that many of the requirements exist beyond our solar system so it isn't the same stretch. It's just not.
 
RandFan said:
Watson passed away in 1956. He was neither a cosmologist, statician or mathmatician. I don't know when he made this quoate but if he made it on his death bed then I'm affraid our understanding has grown quite a bit in 63 years...
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:rolleyes:

2009 - 1956 = 53

Watson isn't alone.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
Spinkled pixie dust? You know like how they blow talcum powder over the laser beams and the particles magically stay in the air allowing Katherine Zeta Jones to steal the diamonds or whatever. Yeah, I'm taking my pixie dust and going hunting for disembodied spirits.
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Yep. That's how it seems now. But when I believed in such things I guess it didn't occur to me that there was no "differential diagnosis" between my "spirit guides" or "higher self" and someone else's invisible friend.

It was a neurological patient that made me understand how important a brain was, though I remember waking from a car accident in a hospital as a child and hearing them discuss my own potential brain damage and how it might affect me-- I remember being jarred at the thought that I WAS my brain... but it took me a while to intuit this. But, it was "the man with the 7 second memory" (Clive Wearing) that made me realize how essential memory alone was to consciousness... I have been following his case for over 20 years, and I try to learn all the stuff that he never will be able to learn about the condition which affects him so severerly. He constantly imagines himself just waking up from a coma.

So where the hell is his "soul".... if ever was the time to prove itself... it would be when the brain was damaged in such a terrible way. The more I thought about Clive, the more I realized that consciousness COULD NOT exist absent a brain. It's absurd... like a computer program that has no material properties whatsoever. That would make it the same as a non-existent computer program--they would be indistinguishable. God and No god is similarly indistinguishable. How could anyone know that such a thing existed any more than they could claim an invisible computer program exists?
 
RandFan said:
You'll need to do a bit better than an argument from authority based on a 60+ year quote of someone who isn't even an exepert in any field that would lend credence to his opinion.
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That wasn't an argument from authority, it was a quote from Wikipedia (I believe I cited it). The statements in the article before the quote are not attributed to Watson, but rather to the author of the Wikipedia article.

I trust you're not saying that you think that Watson is the only person who believes that some of the terms are mere speculation are you? Or are you saying that there aren't a wide range of values that can and have been obtained from the equation ranging from "very little probability" to "very large probability?" In other words, we simply don't know what values to put for several of the terms.

We don't know anything about god. Nothing. God is as possible as anything not defined as logically impossible.
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Which is to say the probability is greater than zero.

There is a huge difference between god and the possibility of life...
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I don't believe I've ever said the two aren't different. I said that we know that the probability of each is greater than zero, and that any value beyond that is largely conjecture.

-Bri
 
Along the same lines with Clive Wearing, H.M. (the guy who taught us about the importance of the mesial temporal lobes when he lost all short term memory following bilateral temporal resections for epilepsy) died a few weeks ago. Very sad.:(

Yes, cases such as these have turned thinking about consciousness and self on its head.
 
So long as your god is an invisible form of consciousness he's as impossible as all those other invisible entities you don't believe in. Satan, Xenu, the IPU.

If your god is just some advance life form that seeded us, then that's more like Raelian belief... or other sci-fi cults.

Avoiding a definition doesn't make the god more likely to exist. I think all gods are purposely vaguely defined so that they cannot be disproven.
 
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