Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
6 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 13/17 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Thoughts on the Creator Conclusion
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 112 of 187 (604300)
02-11-2011 12:01 AM
Reply to: Message 107 by sac51495
02-10-2011 11:12 PM


Dr. Adequate,
Hi sac! Long time no see. Nice to have you back.
OK, let's go round and round again.
You observe the traits of a computer - that it performs basic to complex calculations, stores data by encryption, processes and interprets incoming data, obeys certain commands, etc. - and think, "what an incredible product of science" (perhaps). You do not consider the possibility that it was produced unintelligently by natural causes.
Well, that's because I know how computers are in fact produced. If they grew on trees, I'd think that they grew on trees.
Could we say that your second clause is a product of naturalistic dogma?
No, it's a product of observation. We know how trees originate. They grow from seeds. They are not carved by intelligent sculptors out of wood. This, surely, is something we can agree on.
Could we say yet again that your statements are a product of Uniformitarian dogma?
You can say what you like --- but what you call "uniformitarian dogma" is something that you wager your life on with every action you take. When, for example, you put a pair of shoes on, you are implicitly relying on the proposition that nature is uniform, and that this time, like every other time, they won't grow teeth and bite your feet off at the ankles.
Now it seems to me to be hypocritical to trust your life to this mode of thought on a daily or hourly basis but to reject it when it starts conflicting with your religious beliefs.
I think I'll quote Hume at you again.
Whether your scepticism be as absolute and sincere as you pretend, we shall learn by and by, when the company breaks up: we shall then see, whether you go out at the door or the window; and whether you really doubt if your body has gravity, or can be injured by its fall; according to popular opinion, derived from our fallacious senses, and more fallacious experience.
So long as you keep on going out of the door and not the window, you have no standing to criticize others for employing "uniformitarian dogma". You trust your life to this "dogma"; and if you are unwilling to trust your religious opinions with it, I put it to you that this is because you know that it would be as destructive of your religion as it is protective of your life and well-being.
You observe a tree in the present: you observe the process of survival and reproduction, of evolution and extinction, and determine that all trees throughout all time were produced by the same basic principles that were used to produce the one you were looking at.
Well, that's certainly the way to bet.
Consider this apple tree.
Certainly an omnipotent God could have poofed it into existence, but if you were forced to stake money on it, you'd bet that it grew on from an apple pip, wouldn't you?
Now, what I said was not that we could be absolutely and dogmatically certain that every tree has always been produced in the way that trees are produced rather than in the way that computers are produced; I rather said that observation gives us no warrant for believing anything else.
The fact that a tree is a little like a computer might be faintly suggestive of the notion that it was produced by an intelligent process like a computer is; but this is surely trumped by the fact that a tree is exactly like a tree, which, in all our experience, isn't. (Similarly, my resemblance to a monkey may suggest that I live in a tree, but my still closer resemblance to other human beings suggests that I don't. If the weaker analogy has any merit, the stronger analogy must be conceded to have greater merit.)
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 107 by sac51495, posted 02-10-2011 11:12 PM sac51495 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 114 by sac51495, posted 02-11-2011 12:57 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 115 of 187 (604306)
02-11-2011 2:37 AM
Reply to: Message 114 by sac51495
02-11-2011 12:57 AM


I think maybe you have missed the point of my message. You dealt only with my accusations toward you of employing naturalistic and uniformitarian conceptions in your interpretation of the world around you. You did not however deal with the point of my message, the point being that what I call your naturalistic dogma and uniformitarian dogma is no less dogmatic than the supposed religious dogma of him who believes in a Creator God.
To which I replied by pointing out that you too rely on this supposed "dogma" for all practical purposes --- you only abandon it when it interferes with your faith.
And really, "dogma" is too strong a word for it. It is perfectly reasonable and natural not to live in fear that next time I put my shoes on they'll bite my feet off. This is based, not on faith, but on experience. To call a belief with such a basis a "dogma" is to broaden the scope of the word until it becomes vacuous --- and would, of course, have to be deprived of all its negative connotations.
But if indeed you are saying that - were you to see a computer growing off of a tree - you would assume the computer to have been "produced unintelligently by natural processes", you prove doubly that you have naturalistic preconceptions ...
That wouldn't be a preconception, that would be an observation. Trees aren't intelligent.
If you claim presumption of an intelligent and spiritual source to be dogmatic, than how much more is presumption of an unintelligent and natural source dogmatic?
Not more, less. Experience tells me that most things aren't produced by miracles; so that's the way to bet.
And this is not something I hold dogmatically --- I am quite willing to consider the possibility of a miracle. But we require positive evidence to believe that a rule (in this case, that most things aren't created by divine fiat) has been broken in some particular instance.
In the words of William of Conches: "God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so."
And remember, you are usually in just the same position --- you are usually just as deeply committed to the "dogma" you deride as I am. If I tell you that yesterday I levitated like Simon Magus, you might admit the possibility, but you wouldn't actually believe me without some sort of corroborating evidence, would you? Because it is much more common for people to lie than to levitate.
The difference between us is that you drop this perspective when you consider certain claims to which you are particularly attached, such as the story in the Bible about the talking snake, whereas I can afford to behave with greater integrity, since none of my views require this sort of protection from scrutiny.
To return to our trees, then, our experience is that they grow from seeds or by vegetative cloning. While I admit the possibility that some tree might have been produced in a different way, I should need positive evidence to believe it; unless and until I have such evidence, the default position is that all trees have been produced in the same sort of way.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 114 by sac51495, posted 02-11-2011 12:57 AM sac51495 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 126 by sac51495, posted 02-12-2011 10:22 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 116 of 187 (604307)
02-11-2011 3:46 AM
Reply to: Message 114 by sac51495
02-11-2011 12:57 AM


I know that were I to fall away from Him and be separated from His power and wisdom, and know then that I was completely reliant on a naturalistic universe, I would live in constant fear of those foundationless laws being violated at every turn, and would be unable - despite even years of experience - to place my faith in those laws which, without their Creator Jesus Christ, are wavering constructs of man's wicked heart, which itself is the most inconsistent pile of dung that the world has ever seen.
In the first place, no you wouldn't. People don't. Well, not sane people.
In the second place, remind me again which of us is meant to be the uniformitarian.
In the third place, how can you get your faith in the constancy of the laws of nature from the Bible, of all places? This is the book containing Pharaoh's magicians, the plagues of Egypt, the bush which burned without being consumed, water turning into wine, the dead rising from the grave and wandering round Jerusalem, the Witch of Endor, demonic possession, and so forth. This is the book that promises us that any day now we might witness such distinctly non-uniformitarian phenomena as the seas turning to blood and the stars falling from the heavens.
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky!
If you do not live, if not in "constant fear", then at least with some nagging anxiety, that the laws of nature may be violated, then I would question your sincerity. Tomorrow Satan could magic you up to the top of a mountain to test your faith like he did to Jesus --- and leave you to make your own way down. If this prospect doesn't worry you at all, I should say that that is because like most people you have a solid basis of common sense beneath your veneer of religion. And, returning to your original claim, I should guess that it would worry you (if possible) even less if you no longer believed in supernatural beings such as Satan.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 114 by sac51495, posted 02-11-2011 12:57 AM sac51495 has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 117 of 187 (604308)
02-11-2011 4:03 AM
Reply to: Message 114 by sac51495
02-11-2011 12:57 AM


Dogma
If you claim presumption of an intelligent and spiritual source to be dogmatic ...
Just to clarify my point about goldrush's apparent dogmatism. Goldrush has given reasons (albeit what I think to be bad reasons) for believing in a creator of the universe and a creator of life. But he has given no reasons whatsoever for his implicit or explicit assumptions about the creator: for example that the creator of the universe and of life are one and the same; that there was one creator of life or the universe rather than a team; that the designer and creator are identical (why should they be?); that this creator is not merely intelligent, but that he is perfectly intelligent; and that this creator is not merely powerful enough to create this universe, but actually omnipotent.
These are religious dogmas --- this is not to say that they are necessarily untrue, or that they cannot be arrived at by reason, but the fact is that so far he has not attempted to arrive at them by reason. And since he has claimed that his views are the product of rationality rather than dogma, I feel that either he should try to provide reasons for these beliefs or he should cease to make statements which go further than his reasoning can take him.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 114 by sac51495, posted 02-11-2011 12:57 AM sac51495 has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 118 by goldrush, posted 02-11-2011 11:59 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 121 of 187 (604406)
02-11-2011 6:35 PM
Reply to: Message 118 by goldrush
02-11-2011 11:59 AM


Through science, little by little, we discern underlying principles and laws which we reason on for beneficial (sometimes not, lol) application in our own designs. This is the beauty of science. But the laws we discover do nothing to diminish the reality of the eternal whole, the Lawmaker, the eternal Creator (Who existed "before" the Big Bang or the "beginning").
I would not in fact argue that science shows us that the universe as a whole has no creator*; merely that it has given us no particular reason to believe in one either. If we were able to look at a whole range of universes, some with creators and some without, and knew which was which, then we might be able to come to some conclusion as to which class our own universe fell into. But we aren't and we can't.
We're like people who have lived all their lives in a large cardboard box trying to speculate about what's outside the box. The limitations of our experience would tend to guide our speculations towards thoughts of more people and more cardboard --- but who would infer the stars or the ocean?
* Science has, of course, exploded the idea of a creator who produced species by divine fiat --- hence this website.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 118 by goldrush, posted 02-11-2011 11:59 AM goldrush has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 122 by goldrush, posted 02-11-2011 6:44 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 124 of 187 (604426)
02-11-2011 8:31 PM
Reply to: Message 122 by goldrush
02-11-2011 6:44 PM


We all use logic and understand certain logical principles to be true because they make sense to us, yet we are not able to prove that logic itself is a valid basis for proof. We just instinctively know that it is, but we cannot explain why.
Apart from anything else, logic is not an instinct. It needs to be taught --- people untutored in logic will overwhelmingly fail at the simplest test of their logical abilities (over 90%, for example, will fail at the infamous "four card test").
If this level of natural inability was conferred on us by God, then I don't think he did a very good job.
How did we first develop ideas of what logic was?
How did we first develop our ideas of the internal combustion engine or the decimal system?
We have brains. There seems to be no reason to ascribe our ideas to a supernatural cause when a natural cause is so evidently at hand.
If one denies God they must demonstrate how logic is valid.
Well, we can, in fact, demonstrate that it works, just as we can demonstrate that an umbrella keeps the rain off. We have no need to ascribe umbrellas to divine wisdom, and you give no good reason for ascribing logic to that source.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 122 by goldrush, posted 02-11-2011 6:44 PM goldrush has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 157 by goldrush, posted 02-20-2011 7:27 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 127 of 187 (604540)
02-12-2011 11:42 PM
Reply to: Message 126 by sac51495
02-12-2011 10:22 PM


Re: Diversion?
Let me restate my point: if you ridicule goldrush for spiritual dogmatism, can you not be ridiculed for naturalistic and uniformitarian dogmatism?
You may ridicule me for what you like. You could begin by finding the thing that is ridiculous.
But to expand the meaning of "uniformitarian" to all experiences which do not deviate from rationally understood principles is to (putting it in your own words) "broaden the scope of the word until it becomes vacuous"
You used the word "uniformitarianism" to describe my stated views. If you now think it doesn't describe them, I don't see that I'm the one to blame.
Once again, you have diverted the issue at hand by redefining "uniformitarian". Never in reliance upon the basic principles (which do not include shoes biting off feet) of this universe have I found assurance in believing that "the present is the key to the past". Uniformitarianism is completely inapplicable in this regard anyway: do you rely on the present being the key to the past in your everyday life? You would only rely on such a philosophy to explain past events anyway, so why rely on it for future events (such as your shoes biting your feet off)?
But don't you see that my argument applies equally to the past as to the future? We have nothing better to go on except our experiences of how the universe actually works.
You say it is "silly" to suggest that at some time in the future your shoes might bite your feet off. So it is. And so, equally in the light of experience, it is silly to suppose that at some time in the past some tree was poofed out of nothing by some sort of invisible magician.
Correct. But what was the point of what I said? Was it not that all trees have a common source? Or did I claim that trees grow by a means other than natural reproduction? I am not saying that one tree out of a billion was created via a miracle, and that the other 999,999,999 were created "unintelligently by natural causes". My default position is that all things are created by God (logos), while your default position is that all trees have been produced unintelligently by natural causes (your own idolized logos). No tree exists in this world that was not created by God. You object and say, "no they weren't, because I went out there and watched the seeds germinate, so I know where they came from". But do you know where the seed came from?..."The tree it fell off of, duh"...where did that tree come from?...Sabe?
But when you follow this line of argument back ... where did that seed come from? ... where did the tree come from that the seed came from? ... and so forth, then I can make no sense of your line of argument except to suppose that you are trying to suggest that there was once a miraculously produced tree. If not, I don't see what you're getting at, and can only ask you to expound further.
The issue is not was the status quo violated?", but "was the status quo violated outside of the will of God?". Indeed, it was not, for it was by the will of God alone that all those things happened.
Fair enough, but that still gives you no grounds for confidence that tomorrow it might not be God's will that Satan should start jerking you around.
In conclusion: let me present the primary issue that we are running circles around: did an intelligent and spiritual source produce the tree, or did an unintelligent and natural source produce the tree?
An unintelligent and natural source, namely a seed.
You say that to "focus on seeds" is "to divert", but really I can see no other way to answer your question except in its plain and natural English sense. If you want to elicit an answer which is not about seeds, then you should be asking me a different question from how trees are produced.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 126 by sac51495, posted 02-12-2011 10:22 PM sac51495 has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 159 of 187 (605556)
02-20-2011 8:23 PM
Reply to: Message 157 by goldrush
02-20-2011 7:27 PM


That is: If it is true that our brains, (and our logic) are a product of evolution, how can we trust logic to prove anything? What prevents logic from changing as evolution continues?
I'd say that logic, in its proper sense, is something that we discover --- we may have got better at it, either collectively over the course of evolution or individually over the course of a lifetime, but that isn't logic changing, it's us.
Can an absolute (immutable) truths really be discovered with logic under such circumstances? How can we ever be sure we are right (or will ever be right) about anything?
You can't --- and the idea of a creator God doesn't help you there.
If god did produce humanity by an act of fiat creation, then for some divine reason of his own he did so in such a way that some people are irrational, stupid, and just plain mad. People can be wrong about almost anything. There's Korsakov's syndrome, where they confabulate memories, for example. There's Anton-Babinski syndrome, in which people are blind but don't know it, because they confabulate visual experiences. And failures of logic, as I have pointed out, are the rule and not the exception.
Given which, you yourself might currently be sitting in a padded cell in an asylum hallucinating this whole conversation. The God hypothesis doesn't rescue you from this doubt. Where then are your "absolute immutable truths" and your ability to be "sure we are right about anything"?
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 157 by goldrush, posted 02-20-2011 7:27 PM goldrush has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 162 by goldrush, posted 02-27-2011 9:58 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 165 of 187 (606707)
02-27-2011 11:28 PM
Reply to: Message 162 by goldrush
02-27-2011 9:58 PM


I am well aware of the pitiful fallen condition of mankind. Human disease and death is a result of sin in the Garden of Eden, a rebellion against God's right as sovereign and authority over his human creation. We are suffering because we wanted independence from God, and thought we'd be better off on our own. Romans 8:22 says the whole creation
is groaning together. This is a result of sin and rebellion.
So you believe. But for the purposes of spoiling your argument it doesn't matter what you attribute it to, so long as you admit that it exists.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 162 by goldrush, posted 02-27-2011 9:58 PM goldrush has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 178 of 187 (607250)
03-02-2011 6:34 PM
Reply to: Message 171 by goldrush
03-01-2011 9:23 PM


BTW, to say that logic is true b/c it works ("is logical") is circular reasoning which is a logical fallacy.
You need to brush up on your logic.
For one thing, "works" is not a synonym for "is logical".
For another thing, something can be bleedin' obvious without being circular reasoning, nor any other kind of fallacy.
If I say that my washing machine washes clothes because it works, would that be fallacious? No, that is why it washes clothes. If it was broken, it wouldn't.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 171 by goldrush, posted 03-01-2011 9:23 PM goldrush 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