The God Delusion

[samael]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Fundy you may be, but I can't argue with anyone who promotes the eating of pie.

Pie is the one all tasty, all nutritious, all convenient food. I have faith that Pie will fill my tummy and give me energy for all my daily pursuits.

[Foggerty]

Originally Posted by BathTub

Richard Dawkins wrote a new preface for the UK paperback and read it aloud to the people who joined him on his trip to the Galapagos recently

It addresses a lot of the crap people used to avoid the issue, including the Courtier's Reply.

Pick your poison
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...24787207865440
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGmALkvcG2M
http://richarddawkins.net/video/TGD%...ace%20WEB2.mov

My understanding is the Quicktime is the highest quality.

Fantastic! Lightspeed etc - he addresses that very review, and says pretty much what I said, only better and with a posh accent

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by samael

I think you have missed the point. If God exists outside our framework, and we can't know he exists, then he is irrelevant. If there is no way for us to detect his influence (ie we can't know he exists) then he has no influence. There is no point considering a influence which, well, isn't.

an observer influencing reality is not outside science - nor consciousness creating reality is merely psychological -

'the universe itself is god, the creation is the creator, and we are all but a part of it. people feel a connection to our world and the universe, which i would describe as god.'

Theists 'God exists' & Atheists 'God doesn't exist' - are the same thing

Originally Posted by samael

Also, a binary choice does not imply an equal chance. Either I am 30 metres tall, or I am not. Its not 50/50, the chances of me being 30 metres tall are pretty bloody slim. Hell, the chance that I am the tallest man in the world is 6,602,224,175 to 1.

As you identified above - we are not even in a position to make the relevant comparative probability judgment. We have no idea whether G (God) is more probable than ~G (not God) given there is no evidence.

and by the way - the idea of 'probability' is based on the assumption that our perceptual beliefs are accurate - it is logically possible that our perceptual beliefs are false (the 'matrix' is possible) - this possibility of 'the matrix' means we can never exclude all chance of error in our perceptual beliefs - however improbable the 'matrix' seems to us or not is irrelevant as our experience in or out of the 'matrix' are exactly the same (our brain knows no difference) - in reality you can never know whether you are 30 metres tall or not - you can only make a decision within the assumed foundation (ie probability holds only within a preferred framework)

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Foggerty

Fantastic! Lightspeed etc - he addresses that very review, and says pretty much what I said, only better and with a posh accent

Wah? I ain't read no review, book, or video clip ( relevant to this thread ), so I don't know what you're talking about.

[samael]

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

an observer influencing reality is not outside science - nor consciousness creating reality is merely psychological -

'the universe itself is god, the creation is the creator, and we are all but a part of it. people feel a connection to our world and the universe, which i would describe as god.'

Theists 'God exists' & Atheists 'God doesn't exist' - are the same thing

What?

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

As you identified above - we are not even in a position to make the relevant comparative probability judgment. We have no idea whether G (God) is more probable than ~G (not God) given there is no evidence.

and by the way - the idea of 'probability' is based on the assumption that our perceptual beliefs are accurate - it is logically possible that our perceptual beliefs are false (the 'matrix' is possible) - this possibility of 'the matrix' means we can never exclude all chance of error in our perceptual beliefs - however improbable the 'matrix' seems to us or not is irrelevant as our experience in or out of the 'matrix' are exactly the same (our brain knows no difference) - in reality you can never know whether you are 30 metres tall or not - you can only make a decision within the assumed foundation (ie probability holds only within a preferred framework)

I can can tell you with much certainty that I am not 30 metres tall. You don't have any evidence either way, for or against me being 30 metres tall (apart from my admission), but the absurdity of the statement suggests that the probability is pretty low.

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by samael

What?

theists: what is independent of the universe is God
atheists: what is independent of the universe is universal laws

whether this was an 'accidental' or 'conscious' occurrence is the disparity

atheist can't prove universal laws preexist but choose to do so
theist can't prove God preexists but choose to do so

neither have to be justified in their beliefs because they CAN'T be justified - evidence/proof probability certainty etc - are tools for explaining what we know & are impotent in this context

Originally Posted by samael

I can can tell you with much certainty that I am not 30 metres tall. You don't have any evidence either way, for or against me being 30 metres tall (apart from my admission), but the absurdity of the statement suggests that the probability is pretty low.

my point is that your 'certainty' is FALSE - the statement is only absurd if you pretend that your perceptual beliefs are beyond error - probability is a speculative game of lets pretend - however absurd being 30 metres tall may be to you has no influence on its certainty

[samael]

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

theists: what is independent of the universe is God
atheists: what is independent of the universe is universal laws

whether this was an 'accidental' or 'conscious' occurrence is the disparity

atheist can't prove universal laws preexist but choose to do so
theist can't prove God preexists but choose to do so

neither have to be justified in their beliefs because they CAN'T be justified - evidence/proof probability certainty etc - are tools for explaining what we know & are impotent in this context

Now you are just babbling.

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

my point is that your 'certainty' is FALSE - the statement is only absurd if you pretend that your perceptual beliefs are beyond error - probability is a speculative game of lets pretend - however absurd being 30 metres tall may be to you has no influence on its certainty

So, 50/50 chance then is it? Either I am 30 metres tall, or I am not 30 metres tall? Cool. Better ring the guinness book of world records, there is a 50/50 chance that I am in fact 30 metres tall!

[Whiplash]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Fundy you may be,

I still don't get why you're associating the word 'fundamentalist' with 'scientist'. One holds steadfast to dogma, the other encourages investigation ...

[Lightspeed]

I don't associate fundamentalist with scientist. I am associating fundamentalist with anyone who insists that the buck ( i.e. thought ) stops with science ( i.e. if it can't be proven scientifically it's not worth thinking about ).

[Whiplash]

Well, scientists have and continue to explain lots of things previously thought unexplainable ... so ... why not?

[doppelgänger of someone]

fixed_truth and Lightspeed: I'm on your fucking side!

I WANT you to know about the complex theological arguments to support the existence of God, and the counter arguments from scientists. I WANT you to develop new and original argument in support of the existence of God.

Which is why you need to read philosophical works in a structured and vigorious manner, i.e. in university, not DIY. Because many of your concerns has already been addressed by past thinkers. University education is DESIGNED to help students learn, by having someone with intellectual authority tell you things (he or she can bloody SHOW you doctorate degree on a piece of REAL paper!), and having exams and assignments to help you remember.

Some of those people are ON YOUR SIDE as well. (Not all of them, I can honestly admit...)

Discussions on internet is usually ineffective because anyone with a computer can join a discussion. You never know if someone behind the keyboard is a loony or someone in the know. I can tell you I have this and this qualification but you never know if I'm lying. Most of the time the long winded discussions are from loonies and are lies. Therefore the first reaction to any discussion is always to consider any idea, that doesn't fit your opinion, to be coming from a loony and therefore wrong. (this is the epistemology of Internet.)

There is a course in Melbourne designed to address the relation between science and religion, at least the Christian religion. If you are in AU you should take courses taught by John Bishop, he is an authority on philosophy of religion.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Whiplash

Well, scientists have and continue to explain lots of things previously thought unexplainable ... so ... why not?

Why not what?

Originally Posted by doppelgänger of someone

fixed_truth and Lightspeed: I'm on your fucking side!

There are sides?

[samael]

Originally Posted by doppelgänger of someone

he or she can bloody SHOW you doctorate degree on a piece of REAL paper!)

But how do you /know/ its real?

[Whiplash]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Why not what?

Why can't science (eventually) be where the buck stops? It's doing a pretty good job of buck-stopping so far ... regardless of whether or not people choose to ignore it.

[Lightspeed]

Science can and is where the buck stops for a lot of people. While there is nothing wrong with that, there is nothing right about it either. It's just a person's choice.

Solely accepting science as your source of truth and accepting nothing else makes you a science fundamentalist.

I agree science is quite compelling in regards to describing the physical universe and I personally enjoy getting my mind blown by reading about quantum physics and the like.

However at least thus far science has only answered the question "why" with "why not" and to believe that science may one day answer that fact is faith as I see it. It's the assumption that there is actually an understandable answer to that question.

Of course to a science fundamentalist, just as it is to a religious fundamentalist, it can be difficult to grasp how anyone could not consider their point of view, because their point of view is "obvious" to them. However, if anything seems obvious it's usually because you've made some fundamental, perhaps unconscious, assumption.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Solely accepting science as your source of truth and accepting nothing else makes you a science fundamentalist.

That should really be "Solely accepting science as your source of truth and considering nothing else...".

[samael]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Science can and is where the buck stops for a lot of people. While there is nothing wrong with that, there is nothing right about it either. It's just a person's choice.

Solely accepting science as your source of truth and accepting nothing else makes you a science fundamentalist.

I agree science is quite compelling in regards to describing the physical universe and I personally enjoy getting my mind blown by reading about quantum physics and the like.

However at least thus far science has only answered the question "why" with "why not" and to believe that science may one day answer that fact is faith as I see it. It's the assumption that there is actually an understandable answer to that question.

Of course to a science fundamentalist, just as it is to a religious fundamentalist, it can be difficult to grasp how anyone could not consider their point of view, because their point of view is "obvious" to them. However, if anything seems obvious it's usually because you've made some fundamental, perhaps unconscious, assumption.

You can't go around redefining words. There is no such thing as a science fundamentalist - scientists are more than willing to swap out any theories for better ones.

Edit : I read your edit, doesn't change my post.

[Lightspeed]

Find the word "scientist" in my post.

[Whiplash]

If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?
-Carl Sagan.

I'm of the personal opinion that:

However at least thus far science has only answered the question "why" with "why not" and to believe that science may one day answer that fact is faith as I see it. It's the assumption that there is actually an understandable answer to that question.

is a cop-out of sorts. I'd rather put my money on humans eventually finding out the answers, that you're attributing to only existing within the supernatural, with careful investigation and understanding.
Unless, of course, our species kills ourselves beforehand.

Science (and a healthy dose of scientific skepticism) is the polar opposite of fundamentalism. Both in practice and in definition.

[samael]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Find the word "scientist" in my post.

Its implied. A person can accept science (scientific reasoning since science isn't a thing like the bible or telly, its a process) as their sole source of truth without being a fundamentalist.

I consider myself a scientist, you don't need to work at dsir or some lab to be one, just a reasonable person. You consider me a fundy - which I know because you called me one. Probably in jest. Pie is good.

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by samael

Now you are just babbling.
So, 50/50 chance then is it? Either I am 30 metres tall, or I am not 30 metres tall? Cool. Better ring the guinness book of world records, there is a 50/50 chance that I am in fact 30 metres tall!

i'm afraid that you're trying to argue without even knowing the fundamental basics of philosophy - "The problem of knowledge" which i'm talking about here is phil101 stuff - but you just don't get it. When you've learned the tools of the trade get back to me - and hopefully you will have finished dogmatically asserting you know things & start questioning your thinking & move past your dated Newtonian concepts.

[Foggerty]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Wah? I ain't read no review, book, or video clip ( relevant to this thread ), so I don't know what you're talking about.

Doh, sorry dude, your name was the first that popped into my head, thought you were arguing against my view of the critique posted by SV

[Matt0r]

what the balls, science is a process, not blind faith, comparing it to religous trickery is retarded.

I hope one day, only for the sake of hilarity, that science proves religion is correct, so we can see these godbothering idiots suddenly change their tune of 'ohnoes, science is teh devvvill!'

[samael]

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

i'm afraid that you're trying to argue without even knowing the fundamental basics of philosophy - "The problem of knowledge" which i'm talking about here is phil101 stuff - but you just don't get it. When you've learned the tools of the trade get back to me - and hopefully you will have finished dogmatically asserting you know things & start questioning your thinking & move past your dated Newtonian concepts.

I have studied and passed first year philosophy papers, I am familiar, and understand epistemology.

I still assert that I know that I am not 30 metres in height - this is not a dogmatic belief. Some things are self evident, even to the solipsist.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Whiplash

I'd rather put my money on humans eventually finding out the answers, that you're attributing to only existing within the supernatural, with careful investigation and understanding.

"Put my money on" is the same as "I believe" is it not?

Fundamentalism is a strict adherence to a set of principals from what I understand. Someone who will accept only what can be proven and will not consider what can only be speculated and not proven is someone who adheres only to the principals of science, right?

[Whiplash]

Not in the context you want.
'I believe', in the religious sense is quite different from the 'I believe' as a prediction that current unknowns will probably become known eventually.

I still disagree with assigning fundamentalism to science. If a theory is proven wrong then it is discarded and something else takes its place. That's hardly fundamentalism.

[Lightspeed]

I think it is. Discarding a disproved theory is within the principals of science.

What isn't within the principals of science is, for example, considering what our understanding of the universe would be if we could know both the exact position and velocity of a particle.

[Lightspeed]

A science fundamentalist will never form a belief based on such speculation unless it is based on proven science. And then if that proven science is disproved they will change their beliefs accordingly.

I'm not saying a science fundamentalist is the same as a religious fundamentalist any more than I would say a political fundamentalist is the same as a religious fundamentalist.

[samael]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

I'm not saying a science fundamentalist is the same as a religious fundamentalist any more than I would say a political fundamentalist is the same as a religious fundamentalist.

But you do compare them as if they are one and the same

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

to a science fundamentalist, just as it is to a religious fundamentalist, it can be difficult to grasp how anyone could not consider their point of view, because their point of view is "obvious" to them

You also say that adhering to the strict principles of science is fundamentalism, but fundamentalism requires faith in the principles - the principles of science could (and should) be changed if found wanting.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by samael

But you do compare them as if they are one and the same

You also say that adhering to the strict principles of science is fundamentalism, but fundamentalism requires faith in the principles - the principles of science could (and should) be changed if found wanting.

If I thought they were the same I wouldn't be making a comparison, I would be saying they are the same.

The principles may change, but they would still be the principles of science, unless they would change into something so radically different that it wasn't science at all. And if that's true then wouldn't that mean you have faith in the current scientific principles seeing you have no way to be sure they are correct or not?

[Sp0nge]

principle != principal

[samael]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

If I thought they were the same I wouldn't be making a comparison, I would be saying they are the same.

The principles may change, but they would still be the principles of science, unless they would change into something so radically different that it wasn't science at all. And if that's true then wouldn't that mean you have faith in the current scientific principles seeing you have no way to be sure they are correct or not?

I don't understand what you are trying to say, you talk about science fundamentalists and religious fundamentalists in the same sentence, pointing out the similarities, then you say they are not the same, even though you use the same word "fundamentalism" to describe them.

If the principles can change, then the "faith" one has in those principles is not the same "faith" that a religious person has in the fundamentals of their chosen religion. Using the same word "fundamentalism" in the same sentence with two different meanings is misleading, hence, I don't really know what your trying to say.

One can rely on science to provide knowledge or one can rely on religion to provide knowledge, but in religion the core principles are always true - they are immutable - which is not the case in science.

[samael]

Off topic a little, but I have always thought it odd that while in science, the ideal is always an approximation and may change anytime while in practice the proponents of science can often get carried away and talk about things in absolute terms (some of the time probably because its just easier to talk like that), while in religion its the other way around. The ideal is concrete and the proponents often soften this "its just a metaphor", "the bible is just a guide" - the ideals of religion are turned into approximations in practice.

[Lightspeed]

Sam, what I am saying is this:

If you that the bible is the highest form of truth and nothing supersedes it, you are a fundamentalist.

If you say that Communism is the only effective and correct form of government, you are a fundamentalist.

If you say that you will only accept ideas and concepts proven by the scientific method, you are a fundamentalist.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

If you say that you will only accept ideas and concepts proven by the scientific method, you are a fundamentalist.

You could rephrase that as "if you say that you don't care what the explanation is, so long as it's the one most backed-up by the facts -- and if you're prepared to drop that explanation the moment a better one comes along and admit that you were wrong up until that point -- you are a fundamentalist".

Of course, then it sounds stupid.

[Cynos]

Originally Posted by Whiplash

Why can't science (eventually) be where the buck stops? It's doing a pretty good job of buck-stopping so far ... regardless of whether or not people choose to ignore it.

Because some things are beyond the scientific method. Prove you love your family. Scientifically.

And Lightspeed, you'd be better off calling them agnostics. Although I'd ask anyone who claims we can only know what can be empirically proven - how do you know that what you perceive as empirical proof is correct?

I love philosophy. We can't prove shit without making an unprovable assumption somewhere along the way. Each of us has to make that first leap of faith.

[BathTub]

Geez some people try so hard to muddy the picture.

Religious Fundamentals: Things are the way they are because the god of my book says so.

Science: Hey, I wonder how this works, lets make hypothesis, test, throw away the hypothesis if it's wrong, revise, retest, move on with new knowledge.

The whole thing about "there are fundamental laws which just work they way they do, so science is fundamentalist too" is just when people deliberately try to confuse things. Science acknowledges gaps in knowledge, saying "I don't know, yet, but I will keep asking, testing, and one day I may find out" is worlds apart from "That's the way my particular god made it"

Trying to equate a lack of knowledge of the way something works to some sort of justification of a deity is lame. It's back to the old standard, if you assert something, you provide the evidence, my inability to say something doesn't exist, isn't evidence for existence.

[Whiplash]

Originally Posted by Cynos

Because some things are beyond the scientific method. Prove you love your family. Scientifically.

Uh ... well, my love for my family is a result of chemical reactions and natural selection. So it could be explained via chemistry or by looking at requirements of organisms for reproducing.
While I personally can't explain it as you'd like me to, don't take my inability to do so as some kind of 'proof' that it can't be. An educated guess would be that someone involved in the fields of neuroscience and evolutionary psychology would have a very good explanation of 'love'.

[StN]

Originally Posted by Whiplash

An educated guess would be that someone involved in the fields of neuroscience and evolutionary psychology would have a very good explanation of 'love'.

Not his guy then!

[Whiplash]

^ "You can't catch me, gay thoughts!"

Back to the 'science will never explain love' argument;

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/sex/love/dn9981

... I forget who originally said this, and i'm paraphrasing, but something like 'Does understanding the science of a sunset make it any less beautiful?'.