What are the strongest arguments for atheism?

[harvey1]

You know, come to think of it. I haven't seen any arguments that support the atheist claim that God doesn't exist. Why is that? So, let's turn the tables for a second, and ask, what are the strongest arguments in support of atheism?

Btw, don't bother answering if you either don't have an argument or don't feel that you are required to support your philosophical position.

[spetey]

Hullo!

So, you're saying that philosophers have no free will by which to choose what they believe? Sounds kinda of an odd position to hold: people believe something because they must believe it.

I won't go near this can of worms. All I'll say here is whatever it means to "choose" a belief, a good philosopher would "choose" to believe only according to dispassionate reasons.

Wouldn't you be happy that theism was cogently superior over atheism? Wouldn't you like it if a theist was able to defeat your reasons for atheism so that you could be a theist?

Hmn, okay, good way to put the question. Well, I'll say this much: it sure would be nice to think (responsibly) that everything is run by a fair and just God, that there was a good reason even for crappy stuff like the tsunami, or the holocaust, and that after this mysteriously mixed life I'll live a blissful eternity in heaven. Other parts of theism I wouldn't be so happy about, but on the whole I'd say heaven and justice are big winners in its favor.

... Then tell me from the perspective of the helicopter, what is different in terms of cognitive structure between a belief held by a frozen human and a "belief" of the laws that two particles are entangled billions of light years apart and billions of years after being entangled.

This is a difficult question--of course, it's also difficult to explain why a human (timeslice or no) is intelligent and a rock isn't (timeslice or no). That's because intelligence is a tricky notion. Nonetheless, I take it as obvious that a (typical) human is intelligent and a rock isn't. I similarly take it as obvious that an electron is not intelligent. But if you disagree--if you genuinely think electrons are intelligent in exactly the same sense that humans and dogs and bees are--then I would have to say this: as you say below, intelligence seems to involve having genuine goals of some kind, and fullfilling them by showing adaptability in the face of obstacles. Humans have such genuine goals in virtue of their evolutionary history (they typically have at least the "four f's", but of course a modern sophisticated human has many others as well--like better local theater). Electrons do not literally have such goals.

If you ask me why I think that, I think for something to have a goal it has to have at least a function in roughly this sense: entity E has function f in case E's performance of f is the best explanation for f's sustained presence.

What is the actual difference that you can describe between a "physical disposition" and a human belief? Are you saying that beliefs in humans do not somehow reduce to a physical disposition of the human brain? Are you a dualist then?

Oh no, I think intelligence is in virtue of physical differences. It's just hard to say what those are. Still, you agree with me that a rock (say) is unintelligent, right? Now exactly why, or on what grounds, we say a rock is unintelligent and a human is intelligent--that's very tough. But you and I seem to agree on a rough answer to this question--adaptability in the face of genuine goals. A rock doesn't have goals. I have yet to see why I should think an electron has goals, just because it behaves in certain ways. So electrons get their spins tangled. Rocks also fall downhill, but that doesn't mean the rock wanted to get there.

So you do not think God is a person. Just to be clear: do you not think Jesus was God, or do you not think Jesus was a person in this sense?

I think Jesus was an exemplification of the process aspect of God in human form. The process aspect of God is not a person, it is a "substance" in the sense that it is not material.

Let me be sure I understand you here: first, you do not think Jesus was (at least temporarily) material substance? The Romans crucified a ghost, according to you?

Second, being an immaterial substance does not automatically rule out being a person--indeed, most traditional theologies attempt to defend the existence of such things (immaterial people). Of course, I think no such immaterial people exist. But I do not think this for a priori reasons.

...when you want to count trivial "theisms" like Laws of Physics theism and Bowl of Coleslaw theisms, then the debate is pointless and empty. So we had to find a line where it would be reasonable to say a god exists. I say the line is personhood. For one thing, Yahweh (usually the one meant by the phrase "God" in Abrahamic cultures) is clearly a person. For another, I do not see why or how you should worship something, anything, that is not a person. Liking a bowl of coleslaw a lot is one thing; worshipping it another.

I didn't invent all the primitive theisms, nor did I insist that a group of people say they are atheists because they even reject those primitive theisms. If you really want to call yourself an atheist, then you shouldn't be agnostic about those primitive theisms, that makes you an agnostic. (Which, btw, is why I said way back when that you are an agnostic.)

Harvey, again: just because some people (apparently) think the laws of physics is a god, and because I believe in the laws of physics, that does not make me a theist, or even agnostic. On your view it would be impossible to be an atheist, since if you believe in anything, it is possible that some people worship that thing, and so since you too believe in this thing that others call "god", you should (on your account) be an agnostic. But that's nonsense. Even if hundreds of thousands worshipped coleslaw, believing in the existence of coleslaw does not make me a theist. I'm an atheist because I think there is no God. Of course I agree that there are bowls of coleslaw and laws of physics, but I don't think either of those are gods. I do not think there are any gods. Therefore, I am an atheist.

In any case, there are significant differences between a bowl-of-coleslaw "theism" and a Laws-of-Physics theism. For one thing, I've already established a computational disposition for a Laws-of-Physics theism, so you should refrain from referring to them as being equivalent.

No, you haven't established this--you've claimed this. Especially if you mean the kind of computational dispositions that make for intelligence, then you are nowhere near establishing this. I have yet to see any reason to think the laws of physics are themselves literally intelligent.

Also, we are still learning how smart the laws are, and it is apparent that the laws are pretty intelligent. In fact, undisputably they are among the most intelligent "substances" that humans have come across.

Harvey, just step back a moment and ask yourself how truly "apparent" and "indisputable" it is that the laws of physics are intelligent, indeed more intelligent than we are. Do you really think that anyone on the street, or in a physics lab--theist or atheist--would find this claim totally plausible and obvious?

Disputably, they could be more intelligent than humans if we consider that they recognize consciousness as Eugene Wigner believed. Since that's disputed, I won't bring it up for an item of discussion.

Phew. I appreciate this restraint on your part. As I say, good physicists do not always good philosophers make. This would be a messy and pointless distraction.

To be reasonable, it must provide a reasonable position on why it rejects pantheism. Your reason seems to be that pantheism is primitive theism, and is therefore reasonable.

No. As I understand it, what you mean by "pantheism" is the view that nature is a god. I do not think nature is a god, and therefore am not a pantheist. I think nature exists, of course, just like bowls of coleslaw and laws of physics. I don't think any of them are gods. One of the reasons I don't think they are gods is that none of them are more intelligent than a bee, and I think you should be more intelligent than a bee in order to be a god. Do you agree?

Okay... then two important questions: ... What, according to you, makes something a god then?

Immaterial, omnipresent, omnipotent (in some pantheist sense of the word), sustaining the universe, bringing about our material universe, having some kind of motive with regard to our material universe, and having computational disposition.

Okay, well, this is sorta close to what I think it would take. Since you think a god has to have a (literal) motive, you think a god has to be somewhat intelligent. (Having computational dispositions, depending on what we mean by that, is not sufficient--I do not think a calculator is more intelligent than a bee, though it may be said to have computational dispositions.)

Do you not feel worship is appropriate for your God?

Yes, I feel worship is appropriate for my God.

I see, and thank you for the straightforward answer. Now, you say God is not a person--that God does not have beliefs and desires. Now, according to you, can God appreciate your worship? Does God (literally) know when God is being worshipped, and does God like it? It seems to me that to appreciate worship, you'd have to be a person, or anyway be at least as smart as a dog (being as smart as a bee wouldn't cut it for this criterion, since I don't think bees can represent others' affection for them).

The minimum necessary condition is a pantheist belief that God is one with nature, but at a minimum God should possess a primitive motive for the universe to become something other than what randomness would dictate.

What is a "primitive motive"? I know what a motive is: it's basically a desire, of the type that people have. But you claim God is not a person, and does not have beliefs and desires.

A primitive motive is a directive to bring about physical actions for a particular reason. For example, the laws have primitive motives.

I see. You want to establish that the physical laws are intelligent because they have "primitive motives", and by "primitive motives" you mean the kind of thing that physical laws have.

I similarly establish that a bowl of coleslaw is intelligent: it has "primitive beliefs", and to have a "primitive belief" is to be partly composed of chopped cabbage.

Communication is not necessarily a requirement to establish intelligence since, if that were the case, hominids were not intelligent. The most important requirement in establishing intelligence is the exhibition of reasoning skills. That is, when confronted with an obstacle, the intelligent thing reacts to that obstacle and finds a way to construct a cognitive-based solution despite the obstacle.

As I say above, I basically agree to this notion of intelligence, and I agree that communication is not necessary to establish intelligence. I was suggesting that communication was the standard way to establish person-level intelligence. But you do not think God is as smart as a person, right?

Just so I can get a sense for where this is heading: are you defending the laws of physics as a god?

Yes, the laws of physics appear to be God.

Again, I ask you to step back and think about the plausibility of the claims to which you are reduced. You think that the law of gravity and such are god. We should, according to you, worship the law of gravity. Right?

They certainly possess many of the attributes of God that philosophers have tried to use proofs to establish God's existence (e.g., Anselm, Aquinas, even modern proofs such as Craig's Kalam cosmological argument, etc.).

They do not possess the required properties, they replace them. Cosmological arguments for God's existence try to establish the existence of a god by saying that a god is the best explanation for the universe. But no one (or no one reflective?) has claimed that being causally responsible for the universe is sufficient for being a god. If the thing that caused the universe is not intelligent in any sense, then it is not a god, and the cosmological arguments fail. Otherwise, just believing the universe had a beginning makes one a theist. But this is obviously incorrect--one can consistently think the universe began and not because of a god.

Do you think that the laws of physics should be worshipped? (Should we set up shrines to the law of gravity and such?) Or do you think it's one of those gods we shouldn't worship?

If I were a pantheist (like you?), I wouldn't worship this God assuming my scope of such a God was limited to this view. However, for the purposes of our discussion here, can we safely say then that atheism is unreasonable?

No, of course not--and please answer my question. According to you, should I worship the laws of physics?

Earlier I thought you identified as a Christian; do you think Yahweh = Jesus = Holy Spirit = Laws of Physics? Jesus was just the laws personified in some way?

Yes, I do think Yahweh=Logos=Laws of Physics. It would be inconsistent of me not to make that identification.

Again, thank you for the straightforward answer. Now, the identity sign, '=', has a very strict meaning. For example, do you accept that if a=b, then whatever property a has, b also has? If so, consider these properties and tell me whether YahwehLogosLawsOfPhysics has them:

• should be worshipped;
• spoke to Abraham;
• was made flesh and then rose from the dead;
• caused the tsunami;
• can be exploited by humans to attain goals (including bad goals, like blowing up cities);
• is smarter than a bee

spetey

[harvey1]

I similarly take it as obvious that an electron is not intelligent. But if you disagree--if you genuinely think electrons are intelligent in exactly the same sense... Electrons do not literally have such goals.

I'm not suggesting that it is the quantum particles have intelligence any more than you suggest that atoms of brains possess intelligence. However, the collective behavior of atoms in the brain do possess some kind of intelligence, similarly, the collective behavior of quantum particles exhibit some kind of intelligence. In the case of the brain, the collective behavior is organized within a physical structure, in the case of the quanta, the collective behavior is organized within nature itself. So, it is more correct to say that nature is behaving intelligently even though, materially speaking, all of this reduces to particles (just like brain intelligence somehow reduce to atoms to some degree or another).

If you ask me why I think that, I think for something to have a goal it has to have at least a function in roughly this sense: entity E has function f in case E's performance of f is the best explanation for f's sustained presence.

If we re-phrase that in terms of an infintesimal slice of time, we'd have to say that entity E has function f reducible to a computational disposition c in case E's performance of f as depicted by c is the best explanation for c. Note that it is c which must be explained from the perspective of our helicopter. We see only organized structures within any one particular time slice, and some of those organized structures represent goals.

Of course, we don't actually see any structure that forms a goal, since we lack sufficient understanding of how such a structure corresponds with a particular goal. All we can really comprehend from up in the helicopter is that over many time slices, creatures function according to f and f seems better than non-f, at least in terms of their continued survival and proliferation of life.

On the other hand, if we look at the function f of nature, nature appears to be surviving longer and the universe appears to be proliferating in life, so there really is no reason to think that a bee with its functions have goals while nature with its laws do not. From the perspective of the helicopter, both bees and nature are moving forward if we mean that in terms of survival and proliferation of life.

Still, you agree with me that a rock (say) is unintelligent, right? Now exactly why, or on what grounds, we say a rock is unintelligent and a human is intelligent--that's very tough. But you and I seem to agree on a rough answer to this question--adaptability in the face of genuine goals. A rock doesn't have goals. I have yet to see why I should think an electron has goals, just because it behaves in certain ways. So electrons get their spins tangled. Rocks also fall downhill, but that doesn't mean the rock wanted to get there.

Up in the helicopter, we can look at functional dispositions and we can easily spot computational dispositions. In case of the functional dispositions of rocks, it is quite easy to see that as a collective set of atoms the rock's computational disposition is no different than what we expect of a rock. That is, the atoms cannot collectively adapt to obstacles that prevent it from being mainly undisturbed as a collective set of atoms. Its functional disposition is no greater than what one might expect by having a collective set of atoms held together as a material.

For brains and for certain quantum systems, the situation is quite different. In case of brains, the collective set of atoms do have some extraordinary properties (as viewed over multiple time slices), therefore we have good reason to suspect that those atoms comprise a system having a computational disposition. In case of a certain quantum systems, we also see some extraordinary properties (as viewed over multiple time slices), and therefore we also have good reason to suspect that those quantum particles comprise a system having a computational disposition.

Let me be sure I understand you here: first, you do not think Jesus was (at least temporarily) material substance? The Romans crucified a ghost, according to you?

This is not relevant to this thread. If you want to introduce a thread on Jesus, then why don't you? I think Jesus was a human being.

Harvey, again: just because some people (apparently) think the laws of physics is a god, and because I believe in the laws of physics, that does not make me a theist, or even agnostic. On your view it would be impossible to be an atheist, since if you believe in anything, it is possible that some people worship that thing, and so since you too believe in this thing that others call "god", you should (on your account) be an agnostic. But that's nonsense.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that if you are not sure if pantheism is correct, but it might be, then you are an agnostic. If you reject even pantheism as a correct view, then atheism is up your alley. You seem to say that pantheism might be true, so that means that atheism is not reasonable.

Pantheists, afterall, aren't saying that nature is like a bowl of coleslaw, or that material regularities of the natural world should be called God. What they are saying is that there exists an immaterial existence to nature, that they call God, which is actually part of nature, and determines what nature is. Nature is forced to explore all the options of this immaterial existence, either for some teleological reason (e.g., to bring life about in the universe), or as a modal realization (e.g., to be all that it can be). It's definitely not a traditional theism where God is an all-good, all-powerful being that is active in saving souls, or healing people, etc.

When you look at atheism, it rejects pantheism because it does not agree that there are immaterial forces of a metaphysical kind that is busy in stearing the world in any particular non-random direction. Atheism, if it is anything at all, is about randomness in purpose. The universe is without purpose in all contemplations of real atheism. That's what separates an atheist from everybody else.

If an atheist says that they believe the universe has a purpose in bringing about life, or expressing itself infinite many ways, including as thought in terms of biological entities, etc., then the atheist has moved over into pantheistic thought--they've become a pantheist. If they just accept that thought as reasonable, something they are not sure about, then they have moved over to agnosticism. They might be very close to being an atheist since they might tolerate only very special kinds of theism, but they are still an agnostic.

Even if hundreds of thousands worshipped coleslaw, believing in the existence of coleslaw does not make me a theist. I'm an atheist because I think there is no God. Of course I agree that there are bowls of coleslaw and laws of physics, but I don't think either of those are gods. I do not think there are any gods. Therefore, I am an atheist.

Are you agnostic to pantheist beliefs, yes or no? Please explain your answer as to why or why not (i.e., without disparaging pantheist beliefs as ignorant folks who worship coleslaw).

In any case, there are significant differences between a bowl-of-coleslaw "theism" and a Laws-of-Physics theism. For one thing, I've already established a computational disposition for a Laws-of-Physics theism, so you should refrain from referring to them as being equivalent.

No, you haven't established this--you've claimed this. Especially if you mean the kind of computational dispositions that make for intelligence, then you are nowhere near establishing this. I have yet to see any reason to think the laws of physics are themselves literally intelligent.

The teleportation example that I gave demonstrates that the laws can maintain knowledge of two particles separated billions of years earlier and billions of light years from their point of origin, and the laws still maintain their identity as twins and can instantly have access to the location years and miles later of that twin. That's a computational disposition. The structure cannot be explained in terms of the charge of an electron. Collectively, quantum particles make a computational disposition that is able to connect two particles at vast distances and times apart.

Also, we are still learning how smart the laws are, and it is apparent that the laws are pretty intelligent. In fact, undisputably they are among the most intelligent "substances" that humans have come across.

Harvey, just step back a moment and ask yourself how truly "apparent" and "indisputable" it is that the laws of physics are intelligent, indeed more intelligent than we are. Do you really think that anyone on the street, or in a physics lab--theist or atheist--would find this claim totally plausible and obvious?

Of course, it is not a statement that can be made without explanation. However, in place of the term "intelligence," others are using terms such as "mystery" and questions such as "how can this be?"

Phew. I appreciate this restraint on your part. As I say, good physicists do not always good philosophers make. This would be a messy and pointless distraction.

Why do you say that? There is still no resolution to this issue as to why quantum systems react to conscious observers. In fact, the situation has only grown worse since now we know that quantum systems react with the pure possibility that they can be measured, even in principle (i.e., we don't even have to perform a measurement to get quantum systems to change their behavior). It's as if the quantum world knows when the room could have listening bugs in it, so it talks in a different language until the possibility of listening bugs has been removed. Wigner's comments are still pertinent.

To be reasonable, it must provide a reasonable position on why it rejects pantheism. Your reason seems to be that pantheism is primitive theism, and is therefore reasonable.

No. As I understand it, what you mean by "pantheism" is the view that nature is a god. I do not think nature is a god, and therefore am not a pantheist. I think nature exists, of course, just like bowls of coleslaw and laws of physics. I don't think any of them are gods. One of the reasons I don't think they are gods is that none of them are more intelligent than a bee, and I think you should be more intelligent than a bee in order to be a god. Do you agree?

You shouldn't accept any intelligence for nature to be an atheist. I would think any acceptance of intelligence is a move toward pantheism. I guess it's debatable, but I would doubt that many pantheists believe God is more intelligent than a bee. They would perhaps see God as a principle that moves the universe in a particular direction. Although, it's a good question.

In any case, the laws are smarter than a bee from what certain experiments indicate, so the question is a little mute. Let me give you a recent example of the ghost image experiments using parametric down-conversion. As shown by Wikipedia, photons are split such that they remain entangled, and each photon is put into a beam splitter where they pursue different paths. In one ghost experiments using this technique (see section 2 page 5-7), it is found that one photon (the signal photon) passes through an aperture mask (such as what is found in CRT television sets), and an image can be constructed using a specially designed aperture mask. In this experiment, they used the letters UMBC. The other photon (the idler photon) is split by the beam splitter right after they are created in the SPDC pump, however it is allowed just to hit a x-y scanning fiber and the detections are recorded.

As it turns out, both detectors show the letters UMBC, even though only signal photon passed through the UMBC. Now, the "mystery" of the experiment is highlighted in the fact that the signal photon passed through a convex lens (400 mm focal length) and into a 25 mm focal length collection lens. The image was increased by double of the aperture mask pattern. However, despite all of these obstacles, the idler photon duplicated the image of UMBC as the signal photon had encountered, including the image complexities of the lens! No bee could do that.

In the second experiment mentioned, an equally complex feat is accomplished with wave interference. Most humans could not make those kind of calculations, and computers would need extensive programming by physicists in order to simulate the same results. Certainly, by changing the parameters slightly, a computer would quickly be unable to adapt to the changes needed to account for a correct simulation.

Just ask yourself this question, if it were crows instead of the laws performing this feat, wouldn't there be headlines tomorrow of how the crows are smarter than most humans?

Do you not feel worship is appropriate for your God?

Yes, I feel worship is appropriate for my God.

I see, and thank you for the straightforward answer. Now, you say God is not a person--that God does not have beliefs and desires. Now, according to you, can God appreciate your worship? Does God (literally) know when God is being worshipped, and does God like it? It seems to me that to appreciate worship, you'd have to be a person, or anyway be at least as smart as a dog (being as smart as a bee wouldn't cut it for this criterion, since I don't think bees can represent others' affection for them).

So many questions, and so off the topic. This is whether atheism is reasonable, and that means a minimum definition of God included, not my full-blown theist beliefs. But, to answer your questions, I think God is very aware of worship, and wants us to worship, and God is "pleased" by our worship.

I see. You want to establish that the physical laws are intelligent because they have "primitive motives", and by "primitive motives" you mean the kind of thing that physical laws have. I similarly establish that a bowl of coleslaw is intelligent: it has "primitive beliefs", and to have a "primitive belief" is to be partly composed of chopped cabbage.

By primitive motives I mean we can demonstrate an obedience to certain functions (literal functions as per quantum theory, for example). Those count as primitive motives since we can place objects in the way of keeping those functions intact, and we can see that they will do extraordinary things to not allow those functions to be violated, even act what appears to us as intelligent behavior.

As I say above, I basically agree to this notion of intelligence, and I agree that communication is not necessary to establish intelligence. I was suggesting that communication was the standard way to establish person-level intelligence. But you do not think God is as smart as a person, right?

God is smarter than a person as you can begin to see from that experiment. It is not very difficult to imagine that someday other experiments will be constructed where no human could even dream of figuring out how to do what the laws do instantaneously.

You think that the law of gravity and such are god. We should, according to you, worship the law of gravity. Right?

No. It's all a continuum, just like our brain is a continuum from the part that controls basic bodily functions to that which solves complex equations. We are seeing, I believe, the part of God that controls basic functions, and we can see how intelligent this part of God's mind is with straightforward experiments.

They certainly possess many of the attributes of God that philosophers have tried to use proofs to establish God's existence (e.g., Anselm, Aquinas, even modern proofs such as Craig's Kalam cosmological argument, etc.).

They do not possess the required properties, they replace them. Cosmological arguments for God's existence try to establish the existence of a god by saying that a god is the best explanation for the universe. But no one (or no one reflective?) has claimed that being causally responsible for the universe is sufficient for being a god. If the thing that caused the universe is not intelligent in any sense, then it is not a god, and the cosmological arguments fail. Otherwise, just believing the universe had a beginning makes one a theist. But this is obviously incorrect--one can consistently think the universe began and not because of a god.

Well, things are certainly moving in the direction of the theists. It goes from one of proving that any kind of God is needed, to a discussion of exactly what is God like, or how intelligent does God need to be.

No, of course not--and please answer my question. According to you, should I worship the laws of physics?

The laws of physics, as we currently understand them, are just the start of the mind that is God, so you shouldn't worship the laws of physics, you should worship the mind that is "higher up" in the hierarchy of those laws.

Again, thank you for the straightforward answer. Now, the identity sign, '=', has a very strict meaning. For example, do you accept that if a=b, then whatever property a has, b also has? If so, consider these properties and tell me whether YahwehLogosLawsOfPhysics has them:

The laws of physics are any all explanations that ultimately decide how the world is fundamentally structured as it is. That means that God is the laws of physics by the fact that I say that God is causally connected to the world and bringing about the divine will in the world.

[*] should be worshipped;
[*] spoke to Abraham;
[*] was made flesh and then rose from the dead;
[*] caused the tsunami;
[*] can be exploited by humans to attain goals (including bad goals, like blowing up cities);
[*] is smarter than a bee

- I'm not sure if God spoke to Abraham (I'm not a fundamentalist).

- I believe that the mind of God has been exemplified as the person of Jesus.

- The "higher up" functions of God did not cause the tsunami, God allows those "lower" functions to stand.

- God's "lower" functions can be exploited to blow up cities.

- God's "lower" functions are definitely smarter than a bee, but so far we've only seen this kind of intelligence exhibited in a few experiments. We have yet to experimentally conclude that God set the constants "just so" or that the laws are made for life, etc., but there's definitely substantial evidence that this is the case. Overwhelming for some, not overwhelming for others.

[spetey]

Happy April, fellow fools!

I similarly take it as obvious that an electron is not intelligent. But if you disagree--if you genuinely think electrons are intelligent in exactly the same sense... Electrons do not literally have such goals.

I'm not suggesting that it is the quantum particles have intelligence any more than you suggest that atoms of brains possess intelligence.

Oh, good! I'm relieved to hear it.

However, the collective behavior of atoms in the brain do possess some kind of intelligence, similarly, the collective behavior of quantum particles exhibit some kind of intelligence.

Sure--when collected into atoms collected into people's brains, for example. In that case it is the person, not the quantum particles, that has intelligence. Now: what other kind of collection of quantum particles are you claiming has intelligence? Here you seem to suggest it is nature:

In the case of the brain, the collective behavior is organized within a physical structure, in the case of the quanta, the collective behavior is organized within nature itself. So, it is more correct to say that nature is behaving intelligently even though, materially speaking, all of this reduces to particles (just like brain intelligence somehow reduce to atoms to some degree or another).

Okay. But you see, we're back to where we started: on what grounds do you say nature is intelligent? Rocks are also collections of quanum particles, but they are not intelligent. We agree (finally) that quantum particles are not themselves intelligent, and we agree that not any old collection of quantum particles is intelligent. So what makes nature intelligent, according to you?

On the other hand, if we look at the function f of nature, nature appears to be surviving longer and the universe appears to be proliferating in life, so there really is no reason to think that a bee with its functions have goals while nature with its laws do not.

I can't reconstruct this into an argument. I'm glad you want to try to show that nature has literal goals or desires of some sort--that would be a step toward showing it's intelligent. But how does the fact that nature has been around a long time ("survived longer") show that it has goals? The sun has been around a long time but I don't think that we should call it intelligent for that reason.

And what does it mean that "the universe appears to be proliferating in life"? It sounds like you mean life happens to proliferate in this place we call the universe. But again, I don't think that's enough to attribute intelligence to something--that it is a location where life takes place.

For brains and for certain quantum systems, the situation is quite different. In case of brains, the collective set of atoms do have some extraordinary properties (as viewed over multiple time slices), therefore we have good reason to suspect that those atoms comprise a system having a computational disposition. In case of a certain quantum systems, we also see some extraordinary properties (as viewed over multiple time slices), and therefore we also have good reason to suspect that those quantum particles comprise a system having a computational disposition.

What collections? What extraordinary properties? What exactly are you claiming is intelligent, now, and on what grounds? I have granted some collections of quarks and such have intelligence: for example, you and me. What other special kind of collection are you talking about?

Let me be sure I understand you here: first, you do not think Jesus was (at least temporarily) material substance? The Romans crucified a ghost, according to you?

This is not relevant to this thread. If you want to introduce a thread on Jesus, then why don't you? I think Jesus was a human being.

I think whether one can hold a consistent theistic position is relevant to the topic of the thread, which is whether there is a good reason to be an atheist. But partly I admit I'm just curious about how you keep all these apparently inconsistent beliefs straight. So you think Jesus was immaterial, a human being, and not a person--is that correct? The being that was crucified was a human, but a ghost human, who had no beliefs or desires?

I'm saying that if you are not sure if pantheism is correct, but it might be, then you are an agnostic. If you reject even pantheism as a correct view, then atheism is up your alley. You seem to say that pantheism might be true, so that means that atheism is not reasonable.

No, I don't think pantheism might be true (except in the sense that I try to be open to the possibility that I'm wrong about any claim--but in that sense, again, we should all be agnostic about everything). I think there is a nature. But I think that nature is not a god. Therefore I am not a pantheist. To be a god, it has to make sense to worship it. I like nature a lot in the sense that I'm grateful for it, and trees are pretty, and so on. But I don't think it makes sense to worship nature. Nature is not a god. For one thing, I think this because nature is not intelligent. I think to be a god, you should have at least enough intelligence to appreciate worship.

Atheism, if it is anything at all, is about randomness in purpose. The universe is without purpose in all contemplations of real atheism. That's what separates an atheist from everybody else.

Quite wrong. An atheist is someone who thinks there are no gods. I think you'll find this definition is much more standard, and captures better what atheists actually say, than the straw man view that "an atheist is someone who thinks everything is totally random." An atheist can think there are forces toward organization of energy, such as semi-closed physical systems and natural selection. An atheist can think that human lives have meaning and purpose. Atheists are united simply in thinking that there is no god. If you've been resisting atheism because you think it means you have to give up all meaning and purpose, then we've been talking at cross-purposes this whole time.

The teleportation example that I gave demonstrates that the laws can maintain knowledge of two particles separated billions of years earlier and billions of light years from their point of origin, and the laws still maintain their identity as twins and can instantly have access to the location years and miles later of that twin.

No, this doesn't demonstrate knowledge. It is something particles (theoretically, at that distance) do. The particles do not in any apparent sense know anything about spins. I thought you were granting that particles are not themselves intelligent above. Do you now retract that claim? Are individual quantum particles intelligent, or no? Does the one particle literally know the spin of the other, according to you, or not?

Also, we are still learning how smart the laws are, and it is apparent that the laws are pretty intelligent. In fact, undisputably they are among the most intelligent "substances" that humans have come across.

Harvey, just step back a moment and ask yourself how truly "apparent" and "indisputable" it is that the laws of physics are intelligent, indeed more intelligent than we are. Do you really think that anyone on the street, or in a physics lab--theist or atheist--would find this claim totally plausible and obvious?

Of course, it is not a statement that can be made without explanation. However, in place of the term "intelligence," others are using terms such as "mystery" and questions such as "how can this be?"

Right. But I hope you can see that to say the laws of physics are mysterious is very far from saying they are intelligent. Pretty much any physicist will have to agree that the laws of physics are mysterious. (After all, they find the laws of physics worth trying to figure out!) That's not the same thing as saying they are intelligent. Right?

You shouldn't accept any intelligence for nature to be an atheist. I would think any acceptance of intelligence is a move toward pantheism.

I can't parse these sentences into anything that makes sense, I'm sorry. Could you try again?

I guess it's debatable, but I would doubt that many pantheists believe God is more intelligent than a bee. They would perhaps see God as a principle that moves the universe in a particular direction. Although, it's a good question.

In what sense then is it a god? Why isn't natural selection similarly a god then--it moves nature in a direction, after all. Again: to be a god, it must make sense to worship it, and to make sense to worship something, it should have at least enough intelligence to recognize and appreciate worship. This is a pretty minimal criterion--a low bar to jump. It makes sense on this criterion, for example, to worship human beings as gods--because they are, at least, intelligent enough to recognize such worship. But actually myself, I think we shouldn't worship something unless it's a lot smarter and good-er than we are. Even really nice, really smart aliens shouldn't be worshipped, on my view. But as a minimal requirement, I'll let my criterion stand.

In any case, the laws are smarter than a bee from what certain experiments indicate, so the question is a little mute.

What experiments? Can you cite a Nature article that establishes the intelligence of the laws of physics?

Let me give you a recent example of the ghost image experiments ...

Yes, very nice. Weird and complicated things happen at quantum levels. I know. That does not establish intelligence. Look: the exact trajectory of a rock bouncing down a hill follows exactly tons of differential equations and such, equations it would be way too hard for us to calculate exactly using even our most sophisticated computers. Do you claim therefore that the rock is smart?

Just ask yourself this question, if it were crows instead of the laws performing this feat, wouldn't there be headlines tomorrow of how the crows are smarter than most humans?

If a crow managed to calculate all the equations and then follow the exact path a rock of certain size and mass would bounce down a hill, I might say that crow was intelligent--but I still would have no reason to say the rock was.

Do you not feel worship is appropriate for your God?

Yes, I feel worship is appropriate for my God.

I see, and thank you for the straightforward answer. Now, you say God is not a person--that God does not have beliefs and desires. Now, according to you, can God appreciate your worship? Does God (literally) know when God is being worshipped, and does God like it? It seems to me that to appreciate worship, you'd have to be a person, or anyway be at least as smart as a dog ...

So many questions, and so off the topic. This is whether atheism is reasonable, and that means a minimum definition of God included, not my full-blown theist beliefs. But, to answer your questions, I think God is very aware of worship, and wants us to worship, and God is "pleased" by our worship.

This is not off-topic. I have said many times I think making sense to worship X is a minimal necessary condition for X to be a god, and we are asking whether it is reasonable to believe there is a God.

Now, you say God is aware of worship--so God has beliefs about whether God is being worshipped, right? And God wants us to worship, so God has a desire, right? So God has beliefs and desires, according to you. So why do you say god is not a person in this standard philosophical sense of, roughly, "something with beliefs and desires"?

I see. You want to establish that the physical laws are intelligent because they have "primitive motives", and by "primitive motives" you mean the kind of thing that physical laws have. I similarly establish that a bowl of coleslaw is intelligent: it has "primitive beliefs", and to have a "primitive belief" is to be partly composed of chopped cabbage.

By primitive motives I mean we can demonstrate an obedience to certain functions (literal functions as per quantum theory, for example). Those count as primitive motives since we can place objects in the way of keeping those functions intact, and we can see that they will do extraordinary things to not allow those functions to be violated, even act what appears to us as intelligent behavior.

It seems then that my rock has "primitive motives". Correct? It obeys the functions laid down by laws like gravity, intertia, friction, and such. If we place a pebble in its way, it will manage to find a way to bounce over that pebble.

Now, an act that "appears to us as intelligent behavior"--of course, rocks don't do that. But naturally this phrase begs the question. On what grounds do you say that entangled particles appear to behave intelligently? That is the very question at hand. Entangled particles collapsing into coordinated spins does not seem intelligent, no matter how weird it might be.

God is smarter than a person as you can begin to see from that experiment.

I'm glad to hear you say that God is more intelligent than a person. I was beginning to think you worshipped something that you thought was truly dumb, and that seemed weird. But you still misunderstand the word 'person' as it is standardly used. If God is smarter than a person, then God is a person. Personhood is a line of intelligence: ET, C3PO, most humans--we all pass this line. If God is at least as smart as one of those, then God too is a person.

And where did the ghost particle experiment rely essentially on the existence of God to explain the data? I don't remember any Nature articles with the headline "God's Existence Proved". The experiment looked like an experiment any atheist could agree to. Now, I know you have your theist take on it--of course. But your take on apparently purely secular material is not a reason for an atheist to reconsider her views.

It is not very difficult to imagine that someday other experiments will be constructed where no human could even dream of figuring out how to do what the laws do instantaneously.

We already have such. Light a stick of incense; as I understand it, the smoke follows paths that we cannot, in principle, calculate. I don't think that makes smoke smart, however. I don't think the weather is smart just because we can't calculate all its behavior, either.

You think that the law of gravity and such are god. We should, according to you, worship the law of gravity. Right?

No.

Okay, phew! Earlier you said that you thought God was the laws of physics, and you also said that God should be worshipped. But here it already looks like you're giving up on the identity between God and the laws of physics. Good!

They certainly possess many of the attributes of God that philosophers have tried to use proofs to establish God's existence (e.g., Anselm, Aquinas, even modern proofs such as Craig's Kalam cosmological argument, etc.).

They do not possess the required properties, they replace them. Cosmological arguments for God's existence try to establish the existence of a god by saying that a god is the best explanation for the universe. But no one (or no one reflective?) has claimed that being causally responsible for the universe is sufficient for being a god. If the thing that caused the universe is not intelligent in any sense, then it is not a god, and the cosmological arguments fail. Otherwise, just believing the universe had a beginning makes one a theist. But this is obviously incorrect--one can consistently think the universe began and not because of a god.

Well, things are certainly moving in the direction of the theists. It goes from one of proving that any kind of God is needed, to a discussion of exactly what is God like, or how intelligent does God need to be.

No, Harvey, it only looks like this to you because you have an antecendent belief you will not relinquish. You assume ahead of time that what created the universe must be God, and so when you hear that the laws of physics may be responsible for creating the universe, you start to make unusual claims along the lines that the laws of physics just are God. But to most people, the potential physical-law explanation replaces the God explanation. If the physical laws created the universe, there is no need to refer to a personal creator. This is not movement in the direction of believing in God--quite the contrary. That's why atheists like Quentin Smith argue for such views. (Why did you think they argue for a purely physical beginning to the universe, by the way? Did you think they were accidentally arguing for theism?)

It's just like evolution. The theory that humans came about from a process of natural selection replaces the explanation that humans all descended from the God-created Adam and Eve. The discovery of evolution was certainly not a step toward showing that the God explanation is right. (Why do you think so many religious people resist evolutionary theory?)

No, of course not--and please answer my question. According to you, should I worship the laws of physics?

The laws of physics, as we currently understand them, are just the start of the mind that is God, so you shouldn't worship the laws of physics, you should worship the mind that is "higher up" in the hierarchy of those laws.

Okay, good. Now: that mind above and beyond the laws of physics is just what I have given reason not to believe in, and so just what you have to establish. I have said all along on this thread that we have no more reason to believe in such a mind than we have to believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn. You share this reason when it comes to not believing in the IPU (may her hooves never be shod). Why do you reject this reasoning when it comes to Yahweh?

That means that God is the laws of physics by the fact that I say that God is causally connected to the world and bringing about the divine will in the world.

In other words, God "is" the laws of physics in that God performs the laws, or it's one of the things God does, right? You call them God's "lower functions". But the laws of physics aren't identical to God, right? Things aren't identical to their functions, after all.

Put it another way: I'm also causally connected to the world, and I bring about the spetey will in the world (sometimes). Does that mean I am the laws of physics? No, of course not--the laws of physics is something I use, so to speak, to achieve my will. It sounds like you're saying something similar (and to my mind, much more reasonable) about God.

So, it sounds like you're giving up the view that God just is the laws of physics, right? The laws of physics are a function or part of God, according to you, but not exactly the same as God--right? This is important, so please answer.


spetey

[harvey1]

Happy April, fellow fools!

Well, I wanted to give you a break on the atheist's holiday (since you were so kind to lay off on Easter ), but I couldn't resist... Sorry.

Sure--when collected into atoms collected into people's brains, for example. In that case it is the person, not the quantum particles, that has intelligence. Now: what other kind of collection of quantum particles are you claiming has intelligence? Here you seem to suggest it is nature:

There's two possibilities as I see it. Pantheists are right and nature has a side which is infinite and ethereal, in which case we are talking about nature. Or, panentheists are right, and nature is the object and a higher reality is the "location" of this causal nexus of laws, etc.. I'm fine with referring to this as "nature" or laws, but I should clarify this by saying that I see the natural world as an object and God as a "higher reality" residing "over" the natural world. God is nature (i.e., in the sense that God's will and the laws of physics are identical), but God is something more than nature too. That's why I call myself a panentheist.

Okay. But you see, we're back to where we started: on what grounds do you say nature is intelligent? Rocks are also collections of quanum particles, but they are not intelligent. We agree (finally) that quantum particles are not themselves intelligent, and we agree that not any old collection of quantum particles is intelligent. So what makes nature intelligent, according to you?

The same grounds that make any thing intelligent from the perspective of the helicopter we've been hovering in for the last week or so. We see the laws acting in the world, we see that we can make valid computational dispositional claims about them, and we see that they can overcome obstacles as my two experiments I cited have demonstrated.

I'm glad you want to try to show that nature has literal goals or desires of some sort--that would be a step toward showing it's intelligent. But how does the fact that nature has been around a long time ("survived longer") show that it has goals? The sun has been around a long time but I don't think that we should call it intelligent for that reason.

The atoms in human brains have been around as long as the sun, perhaps longer since they probably were created in a previous supernova. What demonstrates that our brains have goals and desires from the position of the helicopter? We must look to the function of survival to really say that such and such a creature has a goal or desire. That is, in natural selection the four f's (as you put it) are driven by the goal to survive, which we think fuels the goals to extend outward (by making more children, marking more territory, etc.). All of these goals of a species extending itself is all interpreted to mean that the species fundamentally "wishes" to survive. Of course, the universe itself does not appear to have any of the four f's, but we see other functions such as galaxy creation, star creation, planet creation, life creation, etc., which can all be interpreted as evidence that nature has a goal to extend itself.

However, we could even take a bigger step back and ask if creatures have free will. I would guess that you don't think creatures have free will, and therefore that makes you very vunerable to there not being any real goal or desire that exists within any creature. If there is no free will, then all goals reduce to something much more deterministic in nature, namely some kind of materialism where everything reduces to matter (including beliefs, ideas, thoughts, goals, desires, etc.). If you agree to philosophy (and I can't see why you wouldn't since you are a materialist), then it would seem to me like you argument peters out here since you are saying that goals are just physical processes running through the motions of hapless beings who only think they have free will to create their own goals and desires. Nothing of the sort actually exists. It would seem in that case, goals are irrelevant to your case of intelligence.

The real issue is whether cognitive problem solving abilities are visible. And, I would like us to concentrate on this issue since the evidence is that laws of nature demonstrate such kind of ability, and therefore I don't you can say that biological entities (which have cognitive abilities) are intelligent, and the laws of nature (with cognitive abilities) are not intelligent. That doesn't make any sense to me. If they both share these attributes, then both should be considered intelligent.

For brains and for certain quantum systems, the situation is quite different. In case of brains, the collective set of atoms do have some extraordinary properties (as viewed over multiple time slices), therefore we have good reason to suspect that those atoms comprise a system having a computational disposition. In case of a certain quantum systems, we also see some extraordinary properties (as viewed over multiple time slices), and therefore we also have good reason to suspect that those quantum particles comprise a system having a computational disposition.

What collections? What extraordinary properties? What exactly are you claiming is intelligent, now, and on what grounds? I have granted some collections of quarks and such have intelligence: for example, you and me. What other special kind of collection are you talking about?

What you grant is that systems of particles have intelligence. You've restricted these systems to the obvious ones, mainly biological creatures with brains. My point is that you are being inconsistent here. You have to look at a system from an unbiased perspective and see what it is that the system is doing. It could be a rock, mountain, planet, galaxy, person, etc. When we look at most physical systems (i.e., non-biological ones), we see very simple non-computational behavior. However, when we look at certain quantum systems, for example, we see computational behavior. That collection could be any kind of quanta as long as it behaves quantum-mechanically, in which case it is a system having a computational disposition.

If you do not grant that quantum systems can possess computational disposition, then I'd like to hear your reason as to why they do not possess a computational dispositional property.

Let me be sure I understand you here: first, you do not think Jesus was (at least temporarily) material substance? The Romans crucified a ghost, according to you?

This is not relevant to this thread. If you want to introduce a thread on Jesus, then why don't you? I think Jesus was a human being.

I think whether one can hold a consistent theistic position is relevant to the topic of the thread, which is whether there is a good reason to be an atheist. But partly I admit I'm just curious about how you keep all these apparently inconsistent beliefs straight. So you think Jesus was immaterial, a human being, and not a person--is that correct? The being that was crucified was a human, but a ghost human, who had no beliefs or desires?

It's not relevant to this thread what I believe. But, if you must know, I believe that the "higher order" (God) exemplifies itself in nature. As you somewhat can see, my definition of God when talking about the laws of physics is a very general conception of God, not the particular definition of God as is used within Christianity. In Christianity, God is generally the highest level of awareness that exists, and that awareness is Truth, Beauty, Goodness, Mind (or "Father" or sometimes just "God" in Christianity). That which proceeds from the "Father" is the process aspect of God which is active in the world in bringing about the Father's will. This is the Logos in Christianity. The Logos (also God in Christianity) is bringing about a world in accordance to God's will, and as part of process aspect, the Logos becomes one with nature and taking on form in nature. It does that by exemplifying itself in a pantheist sense where the universe takes on more and more properties of God, including sharing its life giving properties with the "dust" of the universe and bringing that "dust" along in an evolutionary process. As the "dust" evolves it takes on more properties of the Logos which, in humanity's case, is the conscious mind. Over time, the conscious mind reaches a point to where it becomes aware of its finite nature and sinful nature, and then the Logos takes on a specific human form in the shape of a human, and becomes one with flesh. This happened in the person of Jesus. The "new man" and the one that brings salvation to the world.

No, I don't think pantheism might be true... I think there is a nature. But I think that nature is not a god. Therefore I am not a pantheist. To be a god, it has to make sense to worship it.

Most pantheists don't worship God, mainly since they don't see anything more to God than a cosmic principle (e.g., the "Force" as in Star Wars) at work. It seems you have arbitrarily defined pantheists as idiots who sit around a tree and call it God. Your view is in line with what pantheists really believe, so you should accept your pantheism (or at least your agnosticism to pantheism).

I think to be a god, you should have at least enough intelligence to appreciate worship.

What if God is intelligent enough to evolve with the universe in terms of setting the parameters of physics to produce abundant life in the universe, but isn't aware of its own existence (or that life is really what is occurring in the universe), would you consider that kind of God an atheist belief? Just as an example, consider if nature is sophisticated enough to recognize "information" as necessary, and so nature seeks to produce information-comprehending creatures to fulfill its self-consistency requirements. In that case, nature is not really aware of itself or its activities, it just a dumb "machine" that is based on self-consistency which does some amazing cognitive stuff. In my mind, this is clearly a pantheist God, and nothing at all compatible with atheism.

Atheism, if it is anything at all, is about randomness in purpose. The universe is without purpose in all contemplations of real atheism. That's what separates an atheist from everybody else.

Quite wrong. An atheist is someone who thinks there are no gods. I think you'll find this definition is much more standard, and captures better what atheists actually say, than the straw man view that "an atheist is someone who thinks everything is totally random." An atheist can think there are forces toward organization of energy, such as semi-closed physical systems and natural selection. An atheist can think that human lives have meaning and purpose. Atheists are united simply in thinking that there is no god. If you've been resisting atheism because you think it means you have to give up all meaning and purpose, then we've been talking at cross-purposes this whole time.

The problem with the idea that atheists are united around "no gods" is that it is not a fundamental description as to what it really means to reject God. Obviously, atheists could accept without problem that our universe was actually created in a physics lab by a promising grad student in a mother universe, don't you think so? Yet, that grad student wouldn't really be God, they would be "a" creator, though. Likewise, atheists could accept that humans could someday figure a way to embed themselves into the fabric of spacetime in the form of strings (for example), and then spread themselves out through space time and do anything physically possible, even change the laws of physics and create other universes like our own. Atheists really would have no trouble with that kind of view if it seemed possible. However, if you knocked them on the head by saying that we've become God, I think most atheists would reject that notion. They would say that even though it has become physically possible to be like God in every respect (i.e., creator, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, super intelligent, eternal, etc.), they would still reject that notion because "God" is the origin of things, not the things themselves taking on God properties. So, it really isn't correct to say that atheism is about a rejection of gods, it it is more correct, I think from my experience, to say that atheism is a rejection of a non-random order to the world that has either preceded it, or has always existed with it (which is closer to a Thomist perspective). You have to look to a non-random order to the world, and not something that is just a label.

As far as ordering processes, etc. that an atheist accepts, of course, however the structure behind the ordering process is seen as random (non-directed by intentionality). That is, there can be no order in or outside the world that brought the universe about for a reason. This is real atheism. This is why pantheists and deists have separated themselves from atheists. Atheists have avoided everything that even looks like a purpose for the world, whereas others have correctly seen that this philosophy is too extreme and have departed company.

The teleportation example that I gave demonstrates that the laws can maintain knowledge of two particles separated billions of years earlier and billions of light years from their point of origin, and the laws still maintain their identity as twins and can instantly have access to the location years and miles later of that twin.

No, this doesn't demonstrate knowledge. It is something particles (theoretically, at that distance) do. The particles do not in any apparent sense know anything about spins. I thought you were granting that particles are not themselves intelligent above. Do you now retract that claim? Are individual quantum particles intelligent, or no? Does the one particle literally know the spin of the other, according to you, or not?

The particles do not know anything. However, this knowledge is maintained in the laws of nature themselves. That is, the quantum equations require that the two particles maintain their entangled status, even billions of light years apart and billions of years later, and the knowledge of them having this status is the makeup of nature itself. That is, the laws exist, those laws establish a relationship that can exist between two entangled parters, and if they become entangled, the laws dictate that they remain entangled until the wave-function of the two partners "collapse." The knowledge that is "out there" just "exists." It doesn't have a particular location, it simply "is." However, the knowledge is existent knowledge that can be readily demonstrated by doing a measurement on one of the partners. This is literally known facts about the partners that the laws of nature have access to.

However, in place of the term "intelligence," others are using terms such as "mystery" and questions such as "how can this be?"

Right. But I hope you can see that to say the laws of physics are mysterious is very far from saying they are intelligent. Pretty much any physicist will have to agree that the laws of physics are mysterious. (After all, they find the laws of physics worth trying to figure out!) That's not the same thing as saying they are intelligent. Right?

I think it is meaningless to talk in terms of words that don't mean anything. The term "mysterious" doesn't mean anything. The ways of a woman are sometimes said to be "mysterious." Does that mean that women and the laws of physics share the same properties? Of course not.

When physicists talk about the quantum laws of nature acting "mysteriously," they are usually referring to a few identifiable properties:

• EPR (Action at a distance): It's mysterious because it doesn't comply with our notion of mechanical causality as a result of some physical contact
• Superposition (entanglement): It's mysterious because it doesn't comply with our notion of classical identity of objects
• Multiple paths: It's mysterious because it doesn't comply with our notion of classical identity of objects and mechanical causality as a result of a unique physical route
• Wave-particle duality (complemenarity): It's mysterious because it doesn't comply with our notion of classical identity of objects as being either one state or another
• Probability: It's mysterious because it doesn't comply with our notion of classical probability where probability is our knowledge of a system and not the actualization of the potential of the objects themselves
• Uncertainty principle: It's mysterious because it doesn't comply with our notion of knowledge where we can know everything that exists about an object, and if it doesn't exist, it can't come to exist without a classical (i.e., mechanical-chemical-electrical-...-...-) explanation
• Quanta: It's mysterious because it doesn't comply with the continuous nature of space, time, energy, and momentum that we see in the world at a classical level
• Tunneling: It's mysterious because it doesn't comply with our notion of classical being in one place location
• Quantum statistics (Bose-Einstein and Fermi-Dirac statistics): It's mysterious because it doesn't comply with our notions of statistical regularities in a classical sense
• Exclusion principle: It's mysterious because it doesn't comply with our notions as to what restricts something sharing the same energy levels in a classical sense
• quantum spin: It's mysterious because the classical notion of a spinning particle doesn't apply even though the particle still possesses angular momentum

Now, all those things are mysterious for those reasons. Now, when we look at teleportation, which-way information, and quantum "ghost" imaging, we are faced with an entire new array of mysteries that are mysteries not because they make fun of our classical notions of space, time, and objects, they are mysteries because they start to make fun of our classical notions of knowledge, information processing, and computation/problem solving. You should address the points I've brought up rather than throw everything into a mystery box and just assume those experiments mean nothing at all to the topic we are discussing.

I guess it's debatable, but I would doubt that many pantheists believe God is more intelligent than a bee. They would perhaps see God as a principle that moves the universe in a particular direction. Although, it's a good question.

In what sense then is it a god? Why isn't natural selection similarly a god then--it moves nature in a direction, after all. Again: to be a god, it must make sense to worship it, and to make sense to worship something, it should have at least enough intelligence to recognize and appreciate worship. This is a pretty minimal criterion--a low bar to jump.

I think you've set the bar way too high, and that you must out of necessity include pantheists and many other theists in your net. It's just not atheism. Atheism shares borders with pantheism and agnosticism, and those borders should be preserved. You seem like you respect the border with agnostics, but you totally disregard the border with pantheists. This criteria is just an ad hoc requirement. The basic criteria for pantheism is that God must be "smart" enough to carry out action in the world that meets the criteria for pantheism, namely that God is bringing life and/or all properties of an immaterial reality into existence. If you believe in that kind of teleological order, then you are a pantheist--no longer an atheist. If you believe that kind of teleological order is reasonably possible, but just aren't sure, then you are an agnostic. Perhaps an agnostic tilting toward atheism, but you are still an agnostic since you have certain allowances for pantheist thought.

It makes sense on this criterion, for example, to worship human beings as gods--because they are, at least, intelligent enough to recognize such worship. But actually myself, I think we shouldn't worship something unless it's a lot smarter and good-er than we are. Even really nice, really smart aliens shouldn't be worshipped, on my view. But as a minimal requirement, I'll let my criterion stand.

Ad hoc. And, where was this criteria at the forefront of our discussion? That's a personal theist belief that God should be worshipped (or at least be worship-able). It alienates a number of theisms, including pantheisms, deisms, open theism, and process theisms.

What experiments? Can you cite a Nature article that establishes the intelligence of the laws of physics?

Few, if anyone, is going to talk in terms of the laws of physics being intelligent, especially in a Nature article. However, if that is your criteria for atheism, then please cite a Nature article that provides good evidence that God does not exist. If you go by those standards, are you prepared to be an agnostic then? I imagine that philosophers should start submitting their articles to Nature before their ideas have any credence (good luck to most of them in getting published).

Let me give you a recent example of the ghost image experiments ...

Yes, very nice. Weird and complicated things happen at quantum levels. I know. That does not establish intelligence. Look: the exact trajectory of a rock bouncing down a hill follows exactly tons of differential equations and such, equations it would be way too hard for us to calculate exactly using even our most sophisticated computers. Do you claim therefore that the rock is smart?

Spetey, you see only what you want to see. Differential equations are not being calculated by the rock falling down a hill, it is just falling down a hill naturally and that happens to be with phenomena involving velocity, acceleration, rates of change, continuous slopes, smooth changes, etc.. It just so happens that diffs are good at describing those kind of phenomena.

In the case of quantum imaging, we have an entire new breed of issues. Yes, it is just as natural as the rocks falling down the hill, except now the rocks are entangled with rocks on the other side of the mountain falling exactly the same time, same paths, hitting the same spots on the mountain, and ending up spelling the same letters in the same locations as the rocks on the other side of the mountain! You can ignore that as a case for intelligence, but all that shows to me is that you just will ignore evidence when presented, simply because it does not match a worldview which you wish to believe as possible.

If you really would like to reject this evidence, then give reasons as to why the ghost images are not behaving with some computational dispositional properties that have strong implications of cognition.

Just ask yourself this question, if it were crows instead of the laws performing this feat, wouldn't there be headlines tomorrow of how the crows are smarter than most humans?

If a crow managed to calculate all the equations and then follow the exact path a rock of certain size and mass would bounce down a hill, I might say that crow was intelligent--but I still would have no reason to say the rock was.

Poor analogy. Are you being serious, or is this your idea of April 1st jokes? The entangled two-photon in the ghost image experiment is not just two particles tied to a string such that one goes as the other. They are hitting the same spots in relation to the letters (i.e., through aperture mask cut-outs--not to mention through two lenses that those invert images) and this is also done with the exact same intensity and phase of the signal and idler photons. It's a demonstration of omniscience on the part of nature in not only "knowing" that its partner is so and so idler photon--some kind of tracking capability is also required along with "knowing" that the partner's path has been diverted by both lenses such that the image is twice the pattern size of the aperture mask cut-out.

Let me just ask you this. If you and a gal you liked in college were to meet up and you found that you explored identical paths, identical everything since college, wouldn't you think that strange? Wouldn't you think something was up?

No, Harvey, it only looks like this to you because you have an antecendent belief you will not relinquish. You assume ahead of time that what created the universe must be God, and so when you hear that the laws of physics may be responsible for creating the universe, you start to make unusual claims along the lines that the laws of physics just are God. But to most people, the potential physical-law explanation replaces the God explanation. If the physical laws created the universe, there is no need to refer to a personal creator. This is not movement in the direction of believing in God--quite the contrary. That's why atheists like Quentin Smith argue for such views. (Why did you think they argue for a purely physical beginning to the universe, by the way? Did you think they were accidentally arguing for theism?)

In the case of Quentin, he has tried just about every argument in the book to not believe in God, even arguments that are entirely contradictory. It's hilarious to read his web page where he argues for everything and anything, just as long as it doesn't support a belief in God. So, I find it very difficult to find his stance credible.

A much more credible atheist is a Steven Weinberg kind of atheist. Has always held the same position from what I can see on the subject, and would probably become a theist if it became a matter of believing in the laws of physics or be an atheist. I'm believe he would believe in God to remain a believer in the laws of physics. Smith would, I think, become a nominalist with regard to the laws if it meant he could maintain his atheism. I have come to think you are in the same boat. This is psychological atheism. There's nothing wrong with it, humans are psychological beings and some people, for whatever reason, need to believe something based on psychological reasons. I believe in God for a number of reasons, but I certainly won't discount psychological reasons, the difference, though, is that I'm honest about it. I believe we have choices in our beliefs, and as long as we are rational, we should believe the most psychological pleasing belief. You call it wishful thinking, I just call it honest thinking and wise thinking. If we really sought out the most plain and simple beliefs possible, none of us would believe much of anything. Possibly a grump would be the best to describe ourselves in that case (140 nations having nuclear weapons and all...).

As far the cogent reasons involved here, the kind you say you are interested in (but show no little or no interest when provided such details), I think any atheist belief that finally succumbs to the facts that the historic proofs of God tried to get atheists to accept will eventually find that that path is a no-go for atheism. Once atheism goes down the platonist path, atheism will finally be wiped away. Carl Sagan used to say that God is doing less and less. Well, the reverse comes to be true. Science is accepting more and more of God.

It's just like evolution. The theory that humans came about from a process of natural selection replaces the explanation that humans all descended from the God-created Adam and Eve. The discovery of evolution was certainly not a step toward showing that the God explanation is right. (Why do you think so many religious people resist evolutionary theory?)

Natural selection works that way on behalf of atheism because it can easily be presented in a materialist framework. The problem with platonism is that it strips the atheist from the materialist framework, and that is not too unlike the emperor without clothes. Sooner or later someone comes along and sees that this emperor has no clothes.

Okay, good. Now: that mind above and beyond the laws of physics is just what I have given reason not to believe in, and so just what you have to establish. I have said all along on this thread that we have no more reason to believe in such a mind than we have to believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn. You share this reason when it comes to not believing in the IPU (may her hooves never be shod). Why do you reject this reasoning when it comes to Yahweh?

Well, first address the issue about how two rocks on the opposite side of a mountain can share the same properties of their rolling down a mountain side and form the same letters with other fallen rocks on both sides. That's what you have to contend with in terms of explaining such a thing without any computational dispositions taking place. Once you start admitting computational dispositions for nature, then you basically accept all the properties of God except increases in IQ. However, science is still young, surely you must realize that much more is to be found which will cast your position further and further from a realistic alternative.

In other words, God "is" the laws of physics in that God performs the laws, or it's one of the things God does, right? You call them God's "lower functions". But the laws of physics aren't identical to God, right? Things aren't identical to their functions, after all...So, it sounds like you're giving up the view that God just is the laws of physics, right? The laws of physics are a function or part of God, according to you, but not exactly the same as God--right? This is important, so please answer.

No, you are wrong Spetey. The laws of physics aren't something that humans get to decide. They are decided by their actual impact to the world. If God ascends higher up than the laws, that doesn't mean that the laws are not God, it means that our current laws are not fully developed enough to understand the higher laws. Ultimately, whatever God is, would be the laws of physics since physics seeks to know the fundamental features of our Universe (with a capital U) that determine all the properties we see. If God is the core of that, then the laws would include God, not exclude God.

[QED]

If this eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent Invisible Pink Unicorn shares all the properties of god, except for her alleged appearance and preferences, how can she be so easily dismissed?

Instead of being worshiped or feared it is known that she likes effigies to be made of her and... (insert any number of one-for-one corresponding egotistical attributes ascribed to Yahweh in here). The IPU reminds us that Yahweh is an arbitrary personification of a mental concept of something that cannot exist in reality i.e. perfection.

Neither personification should be allowed to lend any credence to the notion of god, neither is more valid - irrespective of unsupported testimony offered by the faithful.

It's just not close to being a valid argument QED. I don't have time right now, but in any case, I'm moving in this direction with Spetey, so let's just all get there together.

I can see no movement in this direction which is a little disappointing seeing as your explanation as to why the above is not a valid argument would be most interesting to me.

I have a suspicion that your interest in quantum peculiarities might have you barking up the wrong tree. If you remember, Maxwells equations for electromagnetic radiation have two sets of solutions: one for waves moving outward from accelerated charged particles, moving forward in time (the one that fits our common-sense notions of time and causation) and a second set (largely ignored) that is the mirror image in time, with waves travelling back through time to the particle.

This "Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory" as it is known, readily accounts for all the quantum paradoxes and after half a century of being overlooked is finally being taken seriously. I would like to know your take on this because it removes the computational element from all the interactions you've been discussing. The theory also resolves the question of inertia, explaining how it is that every particle in the universe is "instantaneously aware" of every other. I have always had faith in this particular theory and would be happy to bet on it.

[harvey1]

I can see no movement in this direction which is a little disappointing seeing as your explanation as to why the above is not a valid argument would be most interesting to me.

There is movement in that direction since the IPU fantasy is based on the notion that God is just a wild invention such as the IPU. However, what I'm doing is building a case that current physics requires, at least as reasonable, a view which has all the attibutes of God as understood by pantheists (at a minimum). If that is so, then using the IPU to respond to pantheism is an inappropriate response and must be dismissed as a reason to accept atheism.

I have a suspicion that your interest in quantum peculiarities might have you barking up the wrong tree. If you remember, Maxwells equations for electromagnetic radiation have two sets of solutions: one for waves moving outward from accelerated charged particles, moving forward in time (the one that fits our common-sense notions of time and causation) and a second set (largely ignored) that is the mirror image in time, with waves travelling back through time to the particle. This "Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory" as it is known, readily accounts for all the quantum paradoxes and after half a century of being overlooked is finally being taken seriously. I would like to know your take on this because it removes the computational element from all the interactions you've been discussing. The theory also resolves the question of inertia, explaining how it is that every particle in the universe is "instantaneously aware" of every other. I have always had faith in this particular theory and would be happy to bet on it.

The WE absorber hypothesis has been discarded because the basis of that hypothesis is that the electron does not self-interact, which was later found out to be false since self-interaction is required in dealing with the Lamb's shift (see Cramer, 1986). However, as this same paper points out, this hypothesis can be amended, and that's just what John Cramer did in 1986 with his Transactional Interpretation (TI) of quantum mechanics.

TI is an interesting proposal, and one that I'm not in anyway against. I disagree with it on the account that it proposes an atemporal view of time that doesn't make much sense to me. If the future exists to emit advanced waves (CW: confirmation waves) into the past and somehow fulfill the quantum boundary conditions, then prior to the beginning of the transaction as an emission of the original wave (OW: offer wave), the future exists to send back into the past the CW! It seems to me that it confuses an eternalist view of time with a presentist view of time.

In any case, I don't think such views should be scorned. They are good ideas and have some basis in physical theory, however as I've mentioned to Spetey, we need to look at all reasonable interpretations and not immediately rule them out as IPUish. That shows a distain for open-mindedness, something which I've said that Spetey and other atheists have been lacking.

I might point out that Cramer's transactional interpretation is a platonist perspective of the laws since it is an eternalist perspective that has the laws of physics residing over the universe. So, if we were to take the time, I could show how such an account naturally leads to the existence of God.

[QED]

The WE absorber hypothesis has been discarded because the basis of that hypothesis is that the electron does not self-interact, which was later found out to be false since self-interaction is required in dealing with the Lamb's shift (see Cramer, 1986). However, as this same paper points out, this hypothesis can be amended, and that's just what John Cramer did in 1986 with his Transactional Interpretation (TI) of quantum mechanics.

Quite right, I recall that John Gribbins book "Schrodingers Kittens" quotes all this in the final chapter as a viable solution to the quantum paradoxes. The nature of time is still very much open to question as Maxwells equations demonstrate. I've often wondered if time itself might be finite but unbounded such that the past lies ahead in the distant future.

I might point out that Cramer's transactional interpretation is a platonist perspective of the laws since it is an eternalist perspective that has the laws of physics residing over the universe. So, if we were to take the time, I could show how such an account naturally leads to the existence of God.

That might indeed be worth waiting for, but just what sort of god would it reveal? I can't imagine anything acceptable to the Christian, Muslim or Jewish faiths. As a minimum, to be recognisable to every religion I can think of, this god would have to be capable of interacting with men at a conversational level and I can't see that popping up from the laws of physics very readily. But you and Spetey have already argued at length over this -- so much so I've lost the bubble

[harvey1]

That might indeed be worth waiting for, but just what sort of god would it reveal? I can't imagine anything acceptable to the Christian, Muslim or Jewish faiths. As a minimum, to be recognisable to every religion I can think of, this god would have to be capable of interacting with men at a conversational level and I can't see that popping up from the laws of physics very readily. But you and Spetey have already argued at length over this -- so much so I've lost the bubble

My view of God does not envision anything anthropomorphic in the sense that this actually is how God is. Rather, our views of God are but a rough, rough approximation. So, it is no wonder that God is exemplified in religions as love, as truth, as all-mighty, etc., since this is the closest approximation that one can conceive of God. However, it is just downright incorrect to think of God as this person who lives up in the clouds and looks at his watch and says, "opps, I meant to have a conversation with QED at 2:15 his time, I better get at it...." Such kind of thing is preposterous. Rather, the divine existence is collective laws of the Universe (i.e., laws that we have an extreme simplified view of), and those "laws" provide a direction for the world that we are moved in the direction of the divine will.

[spetey]

Hello again! It's Monday, so I can allow myself a post.

Once again, Harvey, I will cut things way down. (I appreciate your effort to do the same.) But I do have responses to your other points, so if you think I missed something of importance, let me know.

I feel like lately you've been trying to have things both ways on several issues, Harvey. So I think the best way to proceed is for me to try to ask as clear a set of questions as I can, in the hopes of getting a clear set of answers from you--a set of answers to which you're ready to commit.

1. Sometimes you seem to suggest to be a god requires intelligence (as when your own standards say that to be a god requires a literal motive), and other times you say this is merely a crazy ad hoc claim of mine. So I ask as clearly as I can: is any intelligence at all required, according to you, in order for something to be a god?
   1. If yes, how much intelligence? Is any literal motive enough, of the type that bacteria have for getting food? Or would the god have to be at least as smart as a typical human? Or somewhere in between--a bee or dog?
   2. If no, then are totally unintelligent gods worthy of worship, according to you? If yes, why? If not, then what on earth makes it a god?
2. Sometimes you speak as though the laws of physics were strictly identical to God, other times as though they're merely a part of God, or one of God's functions, and there's a mind over and above these laws. So I ask now: is God strictly identical with the laws of physics such as gravity, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and so on? Or are they a mere part of God, and there is more to God over and above them? Or are they a function of God, a behavior that God expresses? Or some other option? Is it God that can be exploited to blow up cities, or only part of God? Is it the law of gravity etc. I should be worshipping, or is that only part of what I should be worshipping?
3. According to you, is it possible that the universe came into being without a god to cause it? Or does the fact that the universe had some beginning automatically imply that there is, therefore, a god?
   • This of course is related to question (1)--suppose it turned out that the cause of the universe had no intelligence? Or is that, too, impossible, according to you? To be causally responsible for the universe is therefore to have intelligence?
4. Sometimes you say quantum particles have no intelligence; other times, you say that their strange behavior demonstrates that they have intelligence. So I'm asking: what exactly (other than typical biological examples--creatures with brains and such) are you claiming has intelligence? Two entangled particles, but not each individually? Quantum entanglement the phenomenon itself? What?
   • Do you stand by the criterion that to have intelligence requires having goals? If so, on what ground do you say that the mysterious thing you claim is intelligent has goals, but a falling rock (say) doesn't have the goal to get to the bottom of the hill?

The difficulty you seem to have coming to a consistent and stable position on these matters, to me, stands as further reason not to believe in any of these gods you posit.

That's plenty for now!


spetey

[harvey1]

[*] Sometimes you seem to suggest to be a god requires intelligence (as when your own standards say that to be a god requires a literal motive), and other times you say this is merely a crazy ad hoc claim of mine. So I ask as clearly as I can: is any intelligence at all required, according to you, in order for something to be a god?

For pantheism, all that is required for there to be a God is that God must act like an intelligent-like "force" in the world that moves the world to a particular type of order that favors structures such as galaxies, planets, life, etc.

[*] If yes, how much intelligence? Is any literal motive enough, of the type that bacteria have for getting food? Or would the god have to be at least as smart as a typical human? Or somewhere in between--a bee or dog?

It's not how much intelligence is needed, what is needed is that the principles needed to drive the universe to some sophisticated order must be sophisticated enough to rule out a random beginning to the universe. That is, the universe either "began" (i.e., the state at the beginning of time, or the state of the universe some infinite time ago) with a tendency to move randomly (i.e., without any real pattern) or to move in a direction of complexity and order such that the Universe was predestined to develop complex structures. The pantheist conception of God is that the universe is predestined to develop complex structures because God is there to bring about this complex order to the world.

[*] If no, then are totally unintelligent gods worthy of worship, according to you? If yes, why? If not, then what on earth makes it a god?

Unintelligent gods are not worthy of worship, unless the intelligent-like entity is far beyond our concept of intelligence, in which case we would be guilty of anthropomorphizing God when we should be worshipping such a God.

[*] Sometimes you speak as though the laws of physics were strictly identical to God, other times as though they're merely a part of God, or one of God's functions, and there's a mind over and above these laws. So I ask now: is God strictly identical with the laws of physics such as gravity, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and so on? Or are they a mere part of God, and there is more to God over and above them? Or are they a function of God, a behavior that God expresses? Or some other option? Is it God that can be exploited to blow up cities, or only part of God? Is it the law of gravity etc. I should be worshipping, or is that only part of what I should be worshipping?

The laws of physics are algorithms that ultimately are approximations of a higher truth. We see this in classical laws which are approximations of quantum and relativistic laws. Similarly, these laws are perhaps approximations of some still more fundamental laws, and so on. Sooner or later, all the physical laws may be seen as approximations of logico-mathematical laws, and those laws are approximations of defining truth in terms of algorithms. God is truth. God is something that eludes full definition by using statements to describe God. However, the statements are also God's identity because even though statements are an approximation to God's existence, God is identified through those statements. That is why we know there is a God because of God's presence in form of order in the world.

You don't have to worship the laws of gravity since they are a low, low approximation of God, and in fact, they do not reflect God's spiritual mind in any meaningful sense.

[*] According to you, is it possible that the universe came into being without a god to cause it? Or does the fact that the universe had some beginning automatically imply that there is, therefore, a god?

No, it is not possible that the universe could come into existence without God to cause it. If God did not cause the universe, then notions such as causality, law, and truth would be human invented terms and our notion of the universe would have to be antirealist and nominalistic in order to conceive of a world that God does not exist. That is, we'd have to waive our hands in the air and say, "we'll never know anything." In that sense, atheism is not the alternative to theism, agnosticism is. Atheism is just wrong.

[*]This of course is related to question (1)--suppose it turned out that the cause of the universe had no intelligence? Or is that, too, impossible, according to you? To be causally responsible for the universe is therefore to have intelligence?

Yes, it is impossible for a causal universe to have no intelligence. It is an oxymoron to suggest such is possible.

[*] Sometimes you say quantum particles have no intelligence; other times, you say that their strange behavior demonstrates that they have intelligence. So I'm asking: what exactly (other than typical biological examples--creatures with brains and such) are you claiming has intelligence? Two entangled particles, but not each individually? Quantum entanglement the phenomenon itself? What?

The laws themselves are intelligent. That is, an EPR quantum entanglement interpretation requires that one believe that quantum laws exist which make two photons at a distant to be considered a two-photon (or biphoton) particle. This is because the equations of quantum mechanics treats them as one particle in superposition. Therefore, if the equations treat them as one particle, then it is the equations that know they are one particle. Hence, it is the equations themselves (the laws) that are intelligent by knowing how the particles must interact in the face of experiments that seek to get them to violate it's own equations. Depending on how you define nature, one could say that the laws are part of nature or separate from nature. If the laws are considered part of nature, then nature is intelligent. If nature is defined as separate from the laws, then nature is dumb.

[*] Do you stand by the criterion that to have intelligence requires having goals? If so, on what ground do you say that the mysterious thing you claim is intelligent has goals, but a falling rock (say) doesn't have the goal to get to the bottom of the hill?[/list]

From the perspective of the helicopter (which is an objective inducing situation so that we don't get deluded by what happens under the appearance of motion), goals are just states (perhaps physical states inside one's brain). The time slices that come after the physical state occurs, shows a correlation of the state in the brain with what later shows a state that happens in the world (i.e., one achieves their goals). In the case of what we actually see, we can never "see" a physical state in the brain and know that this is a physical state of having a "goal." Rather, we hear what the person says is their goal, and we see them accomplish their goal. If we don't have any communication with the person (e.g., hominids who are all gone), we have to assume they had goals and then base their goals on what evidence remains to show what they did (e.g., hunt pigs, sabertooth tigers, etc.). In that case, goals are entirely equivalent to their actions, and those actions show progress toward some more complex state (e.g., cave paintings, making arrows, etc.). Hence, goals are movements toward complex structures (e.g., art, weapons, clothing, etc.).

The universe shows movements toward complex structures, and the laws show a reason for complex structures emerging. Therefore, from the perspective of the helicopter, we have no justification to say that the universe lacks goals while the hominids had goals other than our own experience of what it must have been like to be more primitive as a hominid and therefore struggling for survival. However, in the case of the universe, we have no experience what it is like to be a law of the universe, so we favor the hominid as having goals whereas the universe having goals we might scoof at. Yet, the universe shows directive progress to more structures, and it does so often in terms of immediacy after the structure was possible. For example, galaxies came about immediately after the universe cooled enough to allow atoms to form, stars appeared quickly too, and life appeared on earth quickly after the earth cooled. All of these are examples of how the laws show directive behavior that makes it possible to label these events as goals. At least, from the perspective of the helicopter, we have no reason to rule out one without showing preference to biology. As I showed in the quantum imaging example, the laws show an ability to encounter objects (e.g., lenses) and somehow find a way for the biphoton to act as one photon despite the obstacles in the way. That's intelligent-like behavior on the part of the laws.

The difficulty you seem to have coming to a consistent and stable position on these matters, to me, stands as further reason not to believe in any of these gods you posit.

Oh, Spetey, who are you fooling? You have no intention of ever believing in a God. If we were talking about something unrelated to this theist issue, you would have long ago said it was possible. We are going through this waste of time exercise because I don't have enough sense not to (i.e., I know that you never have an intention to be open-minded about this issue), and you just want to make people into unbelievers. My motive is just to learn more about God (i.e., the reason I'm here), and your's apparently is to start a trend away from theism.