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Are Agnostics Welcome Here?

Piggy,

Could we collapse that whole sequence of posts into one? Look here first, please.


I think I see two issues with your argument. One is the claim that no one ever viewed god(s) as mere creators with no involvement in the universe. I strongly disagree with that statement since there is a clear history of viewing god as completely other that dates back to Plato at least. Look at the debates in the middle ages over defining god, at the Neo-Platonist conceptions of god, at the Enlightenment conceptions, etc. It is simply not true that folks never viewed god(s) as abstract 'other' that began and maintains the universe. It is simply not the case that everyone views god(s) as answering prayers. I have met several people, mostly Jews, who think of god in just such abstract terms and these are practicing Jews who still perform Shabbat services, go to Temple, etc.

Second, I do not agree that we understand the laws of physics at a fundamental level. We describe how they function quite nicely, and granted there are holes to fill in, but we do not understand them at their most fundamental level. I don't know a physicist who would claim that we really have a fix on what it all means; we clearly do not have a theory of everything. I think the easiest way to explain this aspect of the issue is to ask two simple questions: (1) what is gravity? and (2) what is energy? Sure, we can describe what gravity does, model it with special relativity, discuss the curvature of space-time. But what is it? It's the curvature of space-time? How does that work? Special relativity is a model for understanding how it works, for predicting how gravity affects stuff. It doesn't really tell us what it *is*. The same is true for energy. We define energy in terms of what it does because that is what science and our understanding of the world is all about -- understanding how things work.

None of that tells us what things actually are, however. We do not know if what creates what we see as gravity and energy actually is a single fundamental stuff that we can label 'matter' even though that word is covered in other connotations and which accounts for vibrating strings of energy and space-time somehow; or a Universal Mind whose thoughts produce what we see as the same effects; or a god whose actions in some other form produce what we view as the 'the laws of physics'.

All that we can see is this interaction in the universe, this game that we call the laws of physics. It's precise nature will forever remain unknown to us.

This is not a trivial issue for the religious minded person because many of them express their belief about god(s) in terms of wonder at existence itself. If you listen to the non-mindless bigots they can speak somewhat intelligently about their beliefs regarding existence itself. These people are real. They really, truly think of god in this way -- as the answer to existence itself. And they worship and revere this god.

Now, you and I don't feel the need to make that jump. I see no reason to propose what I see as an extraneous entity, especially if that entity implies two independent substances that produce an insoluble interaction problem. I reject the extra god on those grounds, not on the grounds that I can disprove it because I can't. No one can. As to what is labelled idealism vs materialism I can only say, what possible difference could it make? We're still stuck in a situation in which all we can do is model what we see in this universe.


ETA:

I also disagree with your story of the supernatural being a later addition when things were explained naturally. My take is that religions have always included the idea of a world behind this world, though it is arguable that the concept of different natural processes containing spiritual energies is based in a different type of natural conception. Certainly by the time we hit animistic ideas of souls there seems to be a world behind the world at play. I agree completely with your psychological analysis of why this occurs.
 
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punshhh said:
Norseman I am well aware of what Piggy has been saying.

Are you not aware of what a concept is?

All your responses here don't address what I'm saying. I am saying imagine this scenario in order to convey an idea to you which is not easy to put across in plain english.

The details or things I put in the concept are what I say they are and bare no relation to anything else. The God and the forcefield are entirely hypothetical.
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If they're entirely hypothetical, then what is your point? What are you trying to accomplish by posting these hypotheticals, especially with no prior statements of assumption?

Oh, and it's "BEAR no relation to..."
 
annnnoid said:
...does a dog 'see' what you 'see'? Do radio waves 'see' what you 'see'? Does a child 'see' what you 'see'? Does a blind man 'see' what you 'see'? I believe it was St. Paul who said something like '...we all see as though through a glass darkly...' St. Paul, apparently, was not an idiot. What does it mean...not to be an idiot? Likely something to do with 'seeing'.
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Is this supposed to be deep and meaningful? Wow, like, far out.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
There is no logical way out of a fundamental substance as the words are defined and used. Substance refers to a mode of existence. We know that something exists because of the cogito. You simply cannot deny it without refuting your very denial. Fundamental simply means that it is the lowest base of being. You can claim anything as the lowest base -- the self in the cogito, etc. but you cannot deny that there is a fundamental substance without denying existence itself, which is self-refuting.


I'm sorry but this is one of the stupidest discussions I have ever encountered.
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I think therefore I am.

Well in order to think, in fact do anything one must exist, since existence is a state of being all that's being said here is:

I am therefore I am.

As to this fundamental base of being you still haven't shown how it is different than ordinary being. I see a rock and that's all I see, it exists in the present reality but you are claiming that the rock also has some fundamental substance that causes it to exist.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
But a substance must exist or there wouldn't be existence in the first place. Substance denotes existence; its form is an entirely different matter. You can't make the argument that no substance exists unless you want to say nothing exists.
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Your fundamental misunderstanding of substance is not my problem. Things are what they do, nothing else.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
That's the point. We can't. Ultimate reality here does not refer to some other plane of existence or anything weird like that but only to the basic nature of the single substance if monism is correct. So, for instance, we know that the world is made of atoms, made of quarks, etc. All particles are vibrating strings of energy if string theory is correct. But we've also got space-time to contend with; so whatever the single substance is it has to account for both vibrating strings of energy and space-time at the very least. We don't know what that *thing* is.
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Monism doesn't make the claim that there is one single substance; it claims that there is only the material world which exists and nothing else. Monism is more than adequate to explain all of what you just described here.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
I have given my reasons repeatedly in this thread.

The argument that we can know that god(s) don't exist [full stop] is simply wrong. We have excellent evidence against mythological gods -- namely that it is clear that humans invented them. We have no evidence within the universe that can reliably show that those gods do exist.

However, it is still possible that gods exist for the reasons given.

I think it is better for us to say that gods either don't exist, are evil, or are inconsequential/irrelevant. I do not think that the bare statement that they don't exist is correct. When we go around making that argument I think it makes us look foolish.
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So far as any gods are rationally described, they have been all found to be false or non-existent. Again, the issue is when theists try and hold their vague, ill-defined and nonsensical gods up out of reach of science and still claim knowledge and facts about them.
 
Leumas said:
:big:


I am sure you trained with the wrong shamans
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Well, they made me stare at blank walls for long periods, fed me bad food and beat me with sticks if my posture slumped.

Oh wait...maybe I was in jail.
 
annnnoid said:
Better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
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An original wisecrack would be more entertaining. Only a fool would read meaning into ‘Destruction is finding being in matter.’ You may as well say 'Construction is losing seaweed in batter.'
 
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annnnoid said:
…the point ‘you guys’ are trying to make, if it is not obvious, is that some skeptics simply cannot stomach any inference, suggestion, or implication that there could be any possibility of anything remotely related to ‘God’. Thus, your very clear arguments are a threat of some kind. Simply put, it must be possible to establish that God does not exist. End of argument. Anything less is inadmissible for the uber skeptic. That this is metaphysically inconsistent is merely inconvenient…there must be something wrong with philosophy.

In other words…you may be practicing quite acceptable and elementary philosophy, but you are blatantly betraying the skeptic cause. Shame on you.
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LOL U mad bro? Trollish invective aside, it certainly is possible to establish that some god concepts do not exist, but it is not required. What is required is that theists put forth a rational and understandable definition of their god concept and hopefully even provide a mechanism of why this god concept should be taken seriously as existing.

And you are really mis-characterizing skeptics to try and bolster your argument but it's readily transparent that's what you're attempting to do thus easily dismissed.
 
tsig said:
I think therefore I am.

Well in order to think, in fact do anything one must exist, since existence is a state of being all that's being said here is:

I am therefore I am.

As to this fundamental base of being you still haven't shown how it is different than ordinary being. I see a rock and that's all I see, it exists in the present reality but you are claiming that the rock also has some fundamental substance that causes it to exist.
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It isn't different from ordinary being. The issue is 'what is it at its most fundamental'? We can follow the sequence -- rock, element, atom, quark, vibrating string of energy, etc.

But even that can't be the most fundamental because we also have space-time. So whatever is most fundamental must involve both vibrating strings of energy and space-time. But it's worse than that because our vibrating strings of energy and space-time are models for what we see in the universe. We could be wrong and idealism correct. But we would still see the same stuff no matter what the answer for what *is* is.

When it comes to discussing science it's best to leave things at what we can see and model. Metaphysics is a pantload because we can't prove things one way or the other.
 
The Norseman said:
Monism doesn't make the claim that there is one single substance; it claims that there is only the material world which exists and nothing else. Monism is more than adequate to explain all of what you just described here.
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The definition of monism is belief in one single substance which can be material, mental or neutral.
 
Belz... said:
No. There is no need for such a substance and doing so would be a wild goose chase. Let's focus on what things DO, since this is the purview of science and it's worked out pretty well so far.
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I agree with you 100%. Focusing on science is all that we can do, describing what things do.

But we can't examine things 'doing' anything absent existence of something; hence there is at least one fundamental substance. I'm fine with ignoring metaphysics since I think it is a waste of time.
 
The Norseman said:
So far as any gods are rationally described, they have been all found to be false or non-existent. Again, the issue is when theists try and hold their vague, ill-defined and nonsensical gods up out of reach of science and still claim knowledge and facts about them.
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If the issue is whether or not theists hold up ill-defined gods out of reach and still claim to know facts about them, then I agree with you. That is not the issue I was addressing, however.
 
The Norseman said:
What is required is that theists put forth a rational and understandable definition of their god concept and hopefully even provide a mechanism of why this god concept should be taken seriously as existing.
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That a point I can stand beside and support completely. That is part of why I introduced the idea of 'worthy of worship' into the way we discuss god. That is what most theists seem to believe and what has been discussed philosophically. While some folks worship a deist or caretaker god I fail to see what is worthy of worship in such ideas. I don't see why anyone should take them seriously.

That is why what I have been trying to argue is not that we can claim that no gods exist, but that either they don't exist, they are evil, or they are inconsequential and easily ignored.
 
annnnoid said:
Spiritual perspectives that you have yet to reconcile.

Y’know Piggy I have some respect for you because of your well thought out positions on a number of things (the historical Jesus issue, computationalism etc.) but you might want to consider that you may not entirely know what it is that people actually do worship. Having some familiarity with the issue, I can assure you that that is in fact the case (at least, based on your conclusions so far). And since you are basing many of your arguments and conclusions on what you think you do know, you may reasonably conclude that many of your arguments and conclusions are mistaken. Sorry to be so blunt.
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I don't mind bluntness.

The thing is, you either worship something you think is real and acts somehow in this world, or you have come to supposedly "believe in" a thing which isn't any thing at all.

That's your choice, because anything that doesn't in some way manifest or act in our world... there's no way to assert its reality or existence without demanding that we accept the condition that those words must be indistinguishable from their opposites.

And once you do that, you can also say that Mother Teresa was the architect of the Holocaust, and no one can deny it.

This dilemma is there for everybody, for anyone who worships any god in any way.

So if you worship something that hears you and saves kids from car crashes and will judge your soul when you die, you're simply incorrect.

If you worship something which you sincerely believe is outside our spacetime and is utterly incomprehensible, you've managed to ignore a contradiction -- you supposedly believe in something you couldn't possibly have even heard of.

There are people in both camps.

The "can't say no" philosophical crowd simply camps out with the latter group, because the alternative is easily debunked.

It can be very difficult to spot the error, because of how our brains work. The term "god" has built up a dense network of associations over the years -- much denser than, say, most people's networks around "velocipede" -- so when we use it, it's got a certain heft to it, a thinginess.

That leads to the deistic fallacy... the argument that "God created the world then had nothing more to do with it". Gotcha! Right? Well, no.

Simply citing a deed to supposedly have been performed by a mythical creature doesn't make it possibly non-mythical. Especially when that "deed" is understandable in naturalistic terms.

What if I saw some hoofprints from a pony out behind my house, and I said, "A unicorn left these prints, then ran off and I'll never see it"? Would that be an irrefutible argument that unicorns might exist?

Well, no.

Similarly, if you propose that a god created the universe, it adds no weight to the argument for that god's existence. Instead, you have to tell me who this god is which you're claiming might have done this, and then we can search our world to see if it's real.

But boy, when you say it, the deistic claim sure sounds like it's a zinger.

That's because of the heft that your brain gave to the word "god" on its own, which makes it difficult to perceive when the term is being used in a way that's actually entirely undefined.

The deistic fallacy is the bane of the 2nd camp.

Now, you might say, what about a position in between these two poles, the god that sends hurricanes and the god that's beyond our reality and imagination?

Well, that won't work either because if one position is false and the other position is meaningless, no combination of these will produce a position which is coherent and accurate.

So what are you left with? What's the choice, if you're going to assert a god?

There's the god people expect to meet in the afterlife, the kind of god that saves kids from fires, who makes tumors go away, who hears prayer and sends comfort, punishes people with floods, and that sort of thing.

Or there's the god that's beyond everything.

One's not there, and the other's not anything.
 
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