Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
4 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 0/13 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Non-scientific evidence
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 63 of 98 (560279)
05-14-2010 2:58 AM
Reply to: Message 57 by Pauline
05-13-2010 11:18 PM


Re: Stage 2
Since nobody has made any serious points I'll put up a couple off problems:
The Ontological Argument
Kant's objection is petty decisive. Although I believe that I prefer the point that "to be is to be instantiated" (though I forget where I read it, or who said it). It makes absolutely clear the problem with Anselm's argument that it confuses the idea of God with it's instantiation (which would be God Himself).
quote:
Reading this objection got me thinking about the property of existence. And the question I repeatedly kept asking myself was
"In order for something to exist, must it also correspond with reality?" A lot of people will say yes. However, there are examples of non-real existences. For example, if someone has a recipe they have created for the first time in their mind but have not yet tried/cooked, then that recipe exists-----non-really.
Here you have much the same confusion. You confuse the recipe proper - the instructions for creating the dish - with the dish itself. The recipe exists, at least in the mind of it's inventor. The dish does not. So there is nothing there that exists "non-really".
quote:
In this sense, a recipe that is real i.e prepared is perfect while a recipe in mind is imperfect--because it can be prepared. What do you guys think?
I would say that that is obviously false. Following a set of instructions does not make those instructions any more "perfect" in any sense. So long as we are careful to distinguish the recipe proper - the instructions - from the dish produced by following the recipe we see nothing that contradicts Kant's argument in the slightest.
quote:
If there was a perfect Being, we would see a LOT of perfect things in our world...perfect people, perfect places, perfect health, perfect wealth since we would expect that a perfect Being would create perfect things. However, we have reasons to doubt the existence of a perfect Being since we see that our world is imperfect---which means we need to account for where the imperfection came from and why is it existent?
I will note there that this is a major problem for you, and it is very likely that you do not have an adequate answer.
The Cosmological Argument
Merely arguing that our universe has a cause of some sort does little to prove that the cause is God.
Teleological Argument
Essentially what you are proposing is a fine-tuning argument.
The objection that much of the universe is NOT suitable for our existence is a problem that you acknowledge but you don't really answer. Most of the universe - virtually all of it! - is certainly not logically necessary for our existence, so you are either left proposing that the creator had some other purpose for the universe or that the creator was limited to creating universes much like ours. The first option is the better for your argument but it is certainly a bit of a blow for the stream of Christian thought that argues for the central importance of humanity.
Another objection is that we do not know precisely how the universe came to have the constants that it does now - or the probability that it would come out suitable for some sort of life, nor how often the process that produced our universe has occurred. So it is premature to insist that it must be the result of intentional design.
Thirdly, any proposed creator must be an intelligent being. Either it needs a universe like ours or it does not. Therefore, either intelligent beings do not necessarily require a universe like ours - or a universe like ours can exist without being intentionally created.
In short, the argument that the universe was created for the existence of intelligent beings simply does not hold up. A teleological argument that proposed a different purpose might, but that argument has not been made.
The Moral Argument
Your source simply assumes that morality is a set of laws imposed by a "higher" authority. Which rather begs the question of the source of that authority. It cannot be based on any moral claim to authority because that creates a vicious circularity. The obvious alternative - "might makes right" is widely rejected as a valid source of authority and is usually regarded as an immoral view! So I would question whether that argument admits that morality - as most people would understand it - even exists!
quote:
The source doesn't really talk about the concept of conscience. We all know that animals lack conscience. They steal, but do not feel guilty. They kill, but do no view it as a sin. Whereas, humans feel certain emotions that are specific to them and also closely related to their concept of morality.
While this is obviously true of some animals, is it true of ALL of them ? The evolutionary account does not expect it to be true of most animals either. Let us remember that you are talking about internal mental states which cannot be directly examined. Do you have any studies which prove that chimpanzees, say, have no conscience ?
(I will also add that even for humans you have a difficulty distinguishing between instinctive and cultural components of morality - a fact which both impacts any comparison with animals AND any view on the nature and origins of morality).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by Pauline, posted 05-13-2010 11:18 PM Pauline has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 67 by Pauline, posted 05-14-2010 11:50 PM PaulK has replied

PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


(1)
Message 68 of 98 (560418)
05-15-2010 4:27 AM
Reply to: Message 67 by Pauline
05-14-2010 11:50 PM


Re: Stage 2
quote:
No, no. I am making the distinction between the recipe proper and the dish. I am terming the former as non-real and the latter as real---real being what corresponds to the physical world i.e has a physical dimension. Is this a problem?
It is a problem for you in that it makes your argument even more absurd. If you really made that distinction the way give the recipe "real" existence would be to write it down - provided you assume that it had no physical existence in the first place, which is itself contentious. You shouldn't even have mentioned the dish because it is irrelevant.
quote:
Preparing the recipe makes it possible for its characteristics to become real, yes? If I cooked the dish, I could eat it. How is not a step ahead of only having a recipe in mind?
So, in fact your argument DOES rely on confusing the recipe proper with the dish. The characteristics you refer to are those of the dish, not the recipe proper which as I told you is the instructions for preparing the dish. So the recipe proper does NOT become "more perfect", it is still exactly the same.
quote:
Would you like to hear my answer. Disclaimer: it's going to come from my religion. Let's not make this a religious discussion until we get to stage 3. Once we are there, I'll be happy to put it up.
I think I know your answer. Post it only if you are prepared to have it thoroughly demolished.
quote:
Agreed wholeheartedly. All the cosmo argument does is tells us that the universe had to have had a beginning and most likely it was an uncaused beginning since infinity is not a logical option.
Like many people you have funny ideas about logic. There is nothing wrong with infinity (it's weird but not illogical).
quote:
Weigh the favorable and non-favorable factors and that fact that we are here in front of our computers talking over the internet while having coffee is proof that the favorable ones exceed the unfavorable.
Bearing in mind the tiny, tiny fraction of our solar system we are able inhabit, and the far huger distance to even the nearest star it seems that the unfavourable factors outweigh the favourable. If you really assume that the universe exists just for the tiny and insignificant speck which is Earth, and for a species which has only existed for a tiny fraction of the Earth's lifespan then you are speaking from pride and not from an honest assessment of the evidence.
quote:
Do you mean the thousands of celestial bodies floating around in space?
I mean that we could just as easily exist in something like the relatively tiny geocentric universe depicted in Genesis 1, where the sun and stars are just lights in the sky, a few miles up.
quote:
It actually is a easily resolved minor problem.
Not really. Clearly have made the focus on us a central part of your argument so you can't drop that. Therefore you are limited to the idea that a perfect being HAS to create a universe something along the lines of ours. Which very much suggests constraints on its' abilities, and thus contradicting its perfection.
quote:
We are closing the gaps that's for sure. We'll wait and see if science has a solid answer for how the fine-tuning happened. I read online that we might never be able to solve certain mysteries in physics such as why time is 1-dimensional. We know what that means but we can only speculate as to the why part.
Mysteries are not enough to imply an intelligent cause. You are going to need to really deal with the problems to get beyond that (and that means going beyond speculation and making a strong case that your proposed solutions are actually true).
quote:
This sounds interesting. But I admit, I could use further explanation.
It seems pretty clear.
A creator must be an intelligent being, by definition.
If the creator can only exist in a universe like ours, we haven't really solved the problem. We still have an unexplained universe like ours - the one that the creator of our universe exists in. If we invoke another creator we end up with an infinite regress. If we do not then we admit that a universe like ours does not need a creator, and we may as well drop the whole idea.
Therefore, for the argument to be any good we must assume that the creator of our universe does not need a universe like ours.
However, this tells us that intelligent beings do not need a universe like ours to exist. Therefore if the creator desires the existence of intelligent beings, it has no need to create a universe like ours. Therefore the creator's purpose in creating a universe like ours was not the existence of intelligent beings (unless the creator was limited so that was the only way it could arrange for other intelligent beings, but that contradicts your religion).
Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 67 by Pauline, posted 05-14-2010 11:50 PM Pauline has not replied

Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024