How experience can point to reality.... possibility of God?

[playhavock]

Debate topic:
"How experience can point to reality, does this allow for the possibility of God?"
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Welcome readers! Thank you for taking your time to read this and think about the issues we will be debating. I'd like to thank my worthy oppenent dbohm who is of this writing still new enough to the fourms that we still call him new. What better way to welcome him then to crush his ideas with my words! Okay, humor aside, I look forward to his thoughtful aproch to his faith and unique view of his relgion. He has proven to me subjectivly speaking that he is a deep thinker and I expect to have my work cut out for me here. Our debate will be opening intro, then our main debate, followed by rebutal to that main debate, and more rebutals if we find it nessary to expand our ideas - and to conclude a final statment. We have agreed that I shall go first, so dbohm gets the final remarks.

Now then, all welcomes and thanks out of the way, let us begin!

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"How experience can point to reality, does this allow for the possibility of God?"

The internal personal experience is one of the most utilized augments that there is a God, supernatural realms, ghosts, spirits, souls, demons, angels and so on, "But, I experienced this! You can't tell me I did not!" the believer will proclaim. What can we say in response?

First, we must admit that all of reality is experienced inside the brain, via the senses (there are more than 5 but the 5 we all know best will do) our eyes, ears, noses, tongue and skin all interact with the "outside" and inform us of what is "out there" and this is all fine and well, we remember things we previously experienced and our brain forms patterns of explanations, so when one goes to sit in a chair, one expects to have said chair support there weight, and is quite surprised and shocked when it does not. Similarly one gets angry when the car will not start, as one not only expected it to do so, but now this causes other problems and worries.

Still, as age progresses memory deteriorates, the senses do not perceive as much as they once did, and we can trust them less than when we were younger, also there are other factors like a bump on the head that can cause problems with how we process things, and drugs that can alter how we perceive the world around us, and so, one comes to the very frightening idea of how can one know the world outside is in fact, a real world? Well, of course this is answered quite simply, the brain cannot make up all the things you have seen thus far, and making up a new idea is, yes, possible, but only by having other ideas to draw upon. So, yes reality is real, and you can sleep at night.

Yet, the question is, can we trust our senses, and really it should be can we trust our brain, and the answer to both is, most of the time. How frustrating! We can't ALWAYS trust it, for if one closes their eyes only to rest a moment, they might find themself floating all around there house, even landing to open there eyes, did they really fly around in defiance of all we know about physics, or is the more likely explanation - they had a dream - the actual answer.

Of course, we all accept that yes, they had a nice dream, well almost all do. For there are people who sincerely believe that "out of body" experiences happen.

Yet, when put to the test, say placing an object unknown to the person on a high shelf and asking them to identify it, those who claim to have such experiences fail to identify the object every single time. So, they are experiencing something in there brain, but not in reality. This is why such testing is required of strange claims.

What happens, however, when the claim is put beyond the realm of testing, by its very definition? Well, that is when I become highly skeptical about that claim, they have an invisible and undetectible friend who only they can see and hear, why should I believe such a thing? Without any test to perform, I should reasonably conclude that something is wrong with their brain.

Still, we have the believers of God and Gods proclaim that most of the world believes in God, or Gods, so it is perfectly normal, well - the first lie is already evident, not all people believe in the same way, or the same amount, or even believe in the same type of God. So lots of people believe in lots of things that many of them might call God, but when defined properly are so dissimilar to each other that we can see that no, not all people hold the same belief, and perhaps then, it is not so normal or common after all to believe in this thing.

Still, people report having "experiences" with or about God, what can we make of this? Two possibilities, there are many Gods all interacting with people at various times in different ways, or, the more likely explanation, their brains are producing an experience for them. Why? Why should a brain do this? Many possible answers are likely, one being that the brain enjoys the patterns that it can hold when it thinks about God, and the brain then releases chemicals to encourage the conscious brain to keep on doing its thing, so the subconscious is in essence, feeding the conscious mind the chemical food so the subconscious keeps getting the patterns it likes, and the whole brain is happy, the active person reports an experience of God, and the outsider is unable to experience it with them, they must experience it themselves.

Now, we come to the problem of those who never experience such a thing, both believers and non-alike have reported trying many times and failing, to experience God in any way or in the powerful ways that others report, even starvation (fasting) might not produce any experience in these brains. So, either the Gods out there don't like them, or the natural explanation that there brain has evolved differently due to differentiation of species, and they are just not wired to experience this thing at all, there subconscious and conscious mind just refuse to play this strange game no matter how much the active person demands in their brain that it performs (although to the believer they are praying or meditating to reach God).

Is the natural explanation the true explanation? Or is the supernatural Gods explanation the true one? How can we know? If we lack testing, and it seems we do for the supernatural, perhaps it is best then to assume the natural until such tests can be produced.

But, of course, we reach the impasse - as the very word supernatural is by definition forever untestable, it is above and beyond our ability to test, and the only way to "know" it is to experience it, so for those who cannot, it does not exist - back to square one.

Of course, it COULD be real and there brain is simply not wired to receive that reality, but again, this raises the issue of why God(s) would make it that way, well, perhaps the believer will retort that God(s) are a mystery and we can't answer that question.

So, we are left with an answer that does not answer anything and can only be known to some internally, and not often, only when performing meditation or relaxing.

On one side we have a product of the natural brain, that we can study and make sense of. On the other side we have God(s) and supernatural realms that are mysterious and we can never make sense of.

Since the natural is the understandable and testable realm, and because it explains the events rather than producing no real answer, I think we must conclude that it is true, unless and until we can be shown why we should even think there IS a supernatural realm, or anything like a God or Gods "out there".

1: Some experances are of real things, some are of unreal things (dreams, inventions)
2: The natural world can be verifyed and agreed upon by others.
3: The "supernatural" world can not be verifyed or agreed upon by others.

Can dbohm show us any reasion to think that 3 is the answer to 1?
Rather, I would submit that given what we know it is at this time more reasionable to think that 2 is the reasion for 1 producing the unreal things and that 3 should be viewed as one of those things untill such time that we are given reasion to think otherwise.

[dbohm]

I would like to thank Playhavock for the opportunity of debating this topic. Playhavock has much more debating experience than me here so although I won’t ask him to be gentle, I hope he can deal with me fairly. I also hope that we can shed light on this question and through the rigors of debate inquire more deeply into the matter.

Some of my ideas on this subject are embryonic and I have no doubt that Playhavock will highlight any logical fallacies contained in them.

Playhavock and I have agreed to follow the following structure for our debate:

A opening
B opening

A's rebuttal to B's opening
B's rebuttal to A's opening

A's rebuttal to B's rebuttal
B's rebuttal to A's rebuttal

And then however many rebuttals to rebuttals that we feel are necessary then a closing statement.

“How experience can point to reality, does this allow for the possibility of God?�

This question could be reworded ‘how our experience of the physical world and life more in general can reveal a type of metaphysical reality.’ And whether that metaphysical reality makes likely a super intelligent and super powerful being as Architect and Creator. My references to a theological understanding of reality will be based on the Bible but the points of my argument could be used to defend other theistic understandings of reality.

From the outset I wish to make clear that I am not going to be defending dualism. A simple way to describe dualism is that there are two separate realities a mental and physical. I believe neurological science has substantially weakened the arguments for dualism. It has been demonstrated that mental thoughts and patterns can be observed by physical processes in the brain. It appears that every thought we have is accompanied by electrical and chemical activity in the brain. Dualism doesn’t only demarcate a clear line between thought and things but tends to create false dichotomies such as

Natural vs. Supernatural

Evolution vs. Creation

The closest metaphysical label I can find for my understanding of reality is dual-aspect monism. Reality can be shown to be both physical and mental much in the same way that light is both wave and particle.

I want to make it clear that although such metaphysics makes room for miracles and other so called ‘supernatural’ occurrences as recorded in the Bible, I will not argue from these experiences for the possibility of God. Instead I will argue from common experience and the findings of science.

I wish to show that our experience of reality reveals order, intelligence, meaning and consciousness that goes beyond merely our own. God doesn’t have a ‘brain’ as such; we can’t put electrodes on Him and say he thinks and therefore exists. He is different to us. But that does not mean he doesn’t leave traces and indications of his existence. As I hold that the existence or non-existence of God as improvable, I count these traces or indications as just that - indicators not proofs. Some of them, however, I would argue are very strong indicators.

I will put these experiences of life and observations of the natural world under the following headings

Meaning

Our brokenness, need for redemption

Beauty

Communication and information processing at the atomic and cellular levels

Consciousness - freewill

Recognition of intelligence/consciousness and the problem with solipsism

Some of these headings overlap and each could and have been contents of whole books. But I will do my best to summarize and see where the debate will lead


Meaning

There are two kinds of meaning we experience. First is the everyday kind of meaning that we all experience. There is meaning in language. There is meaning in many of our day-to-day activities – we go to work to contribute to others and provide for ourselves and our family. We can read the synoptic chart and gather meaning to predict the weather for tomorrow. Meaning can be read everywhere. We are not ordinarily confronted with randomness and chaos. And those times when we do, we recognize them as randomness and chaos because of the overwhelming meaning and order we see everywhere else. All this meaning in the particulars of our existence seems to indicate that the whole or universal also contains meaning.

There is another kind of meaning that most of us become aware of also. That is the meaning or significance/purpose of our life. Much despair occurs when or if we believe that there is no meaning or significance to our lives. This is expressed again and again in Ecclesiastes 1:2

“Meaningless! Meaningless!� says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.�

Sometimes when we contemplate our life, we ask ourselves what’s the point in it all? Why do we work hard, suffer stress to heap up wealth if it can’t bring any satisfaction or if its only going to be fritted away by the next generation or stolen? We see that death, pain and suffering come to us all and we ask why. What is all of it for? This quest for meaning was what began Siddhartha’s spiritual journey.
The mortality and fragility of our own lives forces us in a way to look beyond. Nature does not normally create needs that can’t be met. If we are hungry, we can eat, if thirsty, drink. So does it not follow that this search for meaning doesn’t also have its food or drink so to speak.

Our brokenness and need for redemption

What is striking about the human condition and almost universally acknowledged regardless of religious persuasion is the awareness of our brokenness. We just don’t even come up to our own standards.

We let ourselves down and other people down even when they are the last people we would want to do that to. We are missing our integrity and wholeness and it is a kind of disease that can never be shrugged off.

Only the pathological narcissist does not recognize they miss the mark and fail to fulfill their own ideals of behavior.

Why do we have this sense? Whether someone describes their morality as deontological or utilitarian we continue to fail even our own standards. And the more attention we pay on improving ourselves and the more introspection we do, the greater this awareness becomes. Regardless of all human effort we can never meet the standards. This leads us to ask if the disease has a cure? Is there a power outside ourselves that can make what is broken whole again? Religion and in particular the gospel say yes.


Beauty

If we take the view that life and the universe is totally random and that we have evolved on the basis of the strength of survival – why do we see beauty beyond merely the sexually desirous?

Why do we find the golden ratio beautiful? Why do sunrises and sunsets even though we can see them everyday, still inspire awe and a sense of beauty?

What makes us stop at a landscape, a painting, literature, or hen we see enemies reconcile, or witness an act of mercy and forgiveness as in the case of Nelson Mandela, or watch a mother and a child interact and say that’s beautiful?

What is remarkable for instance about the golden ratio is that it can be found throughout nature and that human beings immediately recognize its beauty and rightness – Could this be a signature of a grand designer?

Communication and information processing at the atomic and cellular levels

We have known since Einstein that mass equals energy. At the time and even today it is counterintuitive - how can an inert piece of matter be full of energy? But it is. And the atom bomb is testament to just how much energy.

Today advances in science are revealing how much ‘code’ and information processing is occurring at the microbiological and even sub-atomic level. It seems as if information and intelligence pervades the universe. Freeman Dyson a physicist who received the Templeton Prize in 2000 said:

It appears that mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent inherent in every atom. The universe as a whole is also weird, with laws of nature that make it hospitable to the growth of mind. I do not make any clear distinction between mind and God. God is what mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson

Gerald Schroeder a world-renowned nuclear physicist writes

The surprise of science is that discoveries starting in the early 1900s have moved ever closer to the implication that the world we see about us, the objects in our daily lives that we take for granted as being solid, our bodies included, are expressions or manifestations of something as ethereal as energy. And that below the energy lies information, a totally nonmaterial basis for existence. While not calling this information spiritual, science has significantly closed the gap between the material and the spiritual.

Schroeder, G, “The Hidden Face of God�, The Free Press: New York 2001,pg17

This idea of the universe as information is not too far from the biblical understanding of Wisdom see Proverbs 8:22-31

Consciousness – Freewill

Consciousness I see as our ability to observe ourselves think and exist. From this consciousness we are able to watch ourselves take one action or an alternative action/s and therefore we are able to make decisions and can be said to have freewill.
Consciousness is a mystery. But it is there self-awareness that allows us to recognize other persons and empathize with them. Because we can observe our own pain and joy we recognize the forces and power of pain and joy in others. We essentially recognize other consciousnesses through own consciousness.

For many centuries most people have thought that consciousness is only a human attribute and perhaps some animals. However discoveries in science seem to indicate that this self-awareness pervades not only the animal kingdom and the biological but also the non-biological. Gerald Schroeder again writes in the Hidden face of God:

The idea that a universal consciousness, emergent from this wisdom, might be present in what we habitually refer to as inert matter finds support in a range of scientific data. Entangled particles act in concert even though separated by distance that obviate the possibility of their communicating in the reaction time required. It is as if each particle is simultaneously aware of the other’s action at the instant of the action. A classic example of this linkage is the famous double slit experiment in which waves or particles passing through an open slit, call it A, know whether slit B is open or closed. The particles behave as if they are conscious of the condition at B even though B in no way affects conditions at slit A.

Ibid page 154

It seems that awareness and intelligence pervades the universe.


Recognition of intelligence/consciousness and the problem with solipsism

When I was a young teenager I read Descartes’ meditations. This is the book where Descartes comes to the conclusion that the only thing he can be certain of is “cogito ergo sum� or “I think therefore I am�. I thought about this a lot –(yes I’ve never been normal ☺) and I came to the personal conclusion that I couldn’t be sure of anyone’s existence except my own. Everyone could be robots and automatons or figments of my imagination but I knew ‘I’ definitely existed. I learnt later that this is called solipsism.

There is no way to disprove solipsism but it was something I grew out of quickly and most people do. Though its impossible to disprove, in light of experience its an untenable position. Consciousness recognizes consciousness.

We see so much intelligence in the world so much awareness that is it so inconceivable that there is a single “Intelligence� that brought it all together and that we exist in its intelligence. In the words of Paul “For in him we live and move and have our being� Acts17:28.

[dbohm]

Rebuttal to Playhavocks opening statement

The internal personal experience is one of the most utilized augments that there is a God, supernatural realms, ghosts, spirits, souls, demons, angels and so on, "But, I experienced this! You can't tell me I did not!" the believer will proclaim. What can we say in response?

First, we must admit that all of reality is experienced inside the brain, via the senses (there are more than 5 but the 5 we all know best will do) our eyes, ears, noses, tongue and skin all interact with the "outside" and inform us of what is "out there" and this is all fine and well, we remember things we previously experienced and our brain forms patterns of explanations, so when one goes to sit in a chair, one expects to have said chair support there weight, and is quite surprised and shocked when it does not. Similarly one gets angry when the car will not start, as one not only expected it to do so, but now this causes other problems and worries.

Still, as age progresses memory deteriorates, the senses do not perceive as much as they once did, and we can trust them less than when we were younger, also there are other factors like a bump on the head that can cause problems with how we process things, and drugs that can alter how we perceive the world around us, and so, one comes to the very frightening idea of how can one know the world outside is in fact, a real world? Well, of course this is answered quite simply, the brain cannot make up all the things you have seen thus far, and making up a new idea is, yes, possible, but only by having other ideas to draw upon. So, yes reality is real, and you can sleep at night.

Yet, the question is, can we trust our senses, and really it should be can we trust our brain, and the answer to both is, most of the time. How frustrating! We can't ALWAYS trust it, for if one closes their eyes only to rest a moment, they might find themself floating all around there house, even landing to open there eyes, did they really fly around in defiance of all we know about physics, or is the more likely explanation - they had a dream - the actual answer.

You raise a very interesting topic – namely the subjectivity of our experience and how far we can trust our senses. There are good reasons to suspect that we cannot always trust our senses especially when it is confronted with something completely foreign to them. We know for instance that when people regain their eyesight after a life of blindness it takes time, sometimes a lot of time, for them to learn to interpret their newfound vision. Their brain needs to learn depth perception etc.

Our brain interprets data constantly. We all have a blank in our retina, yet we don’t see a hole in our vision because the brain fills it in. Also sensations are not felt in the body but the brain. The brain projects sensation and pain onto a mental map it has of the body. And hence we have some of those unusual cases when people believe a body part doesn’t ‘belong’ to them and get it amputated.

Of course, we all accept that yes, they had a nice dream, well almost all do. For there are people who sincerely believe that "out of body" experiences happen.

Yet, when put to the test, say placing an object unknown to the person on a high shelf and asking them to identify it, those who claim to have such experiences fail to identify the object every single time. So, they are experiencing something in there brain, but not in reality. This is why such testing is required of strange claims.

What happens, however, when the claim is put beyond the realm of testing, by its very definition? Well, that is when I become highly skeptical about that claim, they have an invisible and undetectible friend who only they can see and hear, why should I believe such a thing? Without any test to perform, I should reasonably conclude that something is wrong with their brain.

I agree with you that this is not proof that can be valuable to any one except the recipient. And the recipient must judge the experience and determine whether they perceive rightly or are being tricked by their brain.

For instance if someone had said to Saul before his conversion, I had a vision of Jesus and he told me that he was the Christ and you should stop persecuting his believers, his reaction would no doubt have been ridicule. When he himself had the vision on the road to Damascus, it changed everything for him.

By the same token I could say that I have had direct experiences of God and hear his voice on a regular basis, but that means nothing to you. Even though I could tell that I am a normal healthy person with no history of delusion and mental illness, it is still not your experience and cannot be verified by you.

But just because someone else does not experience these things meant that it is non-existent. If we take God for instance to be omnipresent – that is present in every living and non-living matter, He does not need an intermediary to communicate with the world. Sometimes He does but other times he doesn’t. We however are not omnipresent and must just our body to communicate and perform our will.

Still, we have the believers of God and Gods proclaim that most of the world believes in God, or Gods, so it is perfectly normal, well - the first lie is already evident, not all people believe in the same way, or the same amount, or even believe in the same type of God. So lots of people believe in lots of things that many of them might call God, but when defined properly are so dissimilar to each other that we can see that no, not all people hold the same belief, and perhaps then, it is not so normal or common after all to believe in this thing.

Playhavock I would have thought your study of logic would let you see that just because many people have different beliefs about God doesn’t therefore mean that there isn’t God.

Still, people report having "experiences" with or about God, what can we make of this? Two possibilities, there are many Gods all interacting with people at various times in different ways, or, the more likely explanation, their brains are producing an experience for them. Why? Why should a brain do this? Many possible answers are likely, one being that the brain enjoys the patterns that it can hold when it thinks about God, and the brain then releases chemicals to encourage the conscious brain to keep on doing its thing, so the subconscious is in essence, feeding the conscious mind the chemical food so the subconscious keeps getting the patterns it likes, and the whole brain is happy, the active person reports an experience of God, and the outsider is unable to experience it with them, they must experience it themselves.

You are presenting only two alternatives and ignoring a very important third. Namely that some people have genuine communication with God and other people have non-genuine. A biblical viewpoint can allow for communication with God, deception by demons, mental illness, excitability and tricks of the brain.

Now, we come to the problem of those who never experience such a thing, both believers and non-alike have reported trying many times and failing, to experience God in any way or in the powerful ways that others report, even starvation (fasting) might not produce any experience in these brains. So, either the Gods out there don't like them, or the natural explanation that there brain has evolved differently due to differentiation of species, and they are just not wired to experience this thing at all, there subconscious and conscious mind just refuse to play this strange game no matter how much the active person demands in their brain that it performs (although to the believer they are praying or meditating to reach God).

Even a casual reading of the Bible will show that God does not choose to communicate in a direct and obvious way with the majority of people. And he seems only not communicate in this way to the ‘wicked’ in historically important moments in God’s plans - as in the escape from Egypt, the writing on the wall in Babylon etc.

As for your comment about evolution and that there is a differentiation of species, that is an interesting idea but I’m not sure how you could prove it. What I would say is that real communication and conversation with God ought to bring transformation of Character and that transformation should be evident to everyone. But maybe you’re right, some people’s genetics could be open to receiving this kind of communication and change of character than others. The only thing I would point out is that these kind of revelations normally come midstream in someone’s life not from childhood.

Is the natural explanation the true explanation? Or is the supernatural Gods explanation the true one? How can we know? If we lack testing, and it seems we do for the supernatural, perhaps it is best then to assume the natural until such tests can be produced.

But, of course, we reach the impasse - as the very word supernatural is by definition forever untestable, it is above and beyond our ability to test, and the only way to "know" it is to experience it, so for those who cannot, it does not exist - back to square one.

Of course, it COULD be real and there brain is simply not wired to receive that reality, but again, this raises the issue of why God(s) would make it that way, well, perhaps the believer will retort that God(s) are a mystery and we can't answer that question.

I would argue instead that every human can receive it just that it is not something that can be done through human effort and will alone.

Further I would like to make the point that should someone have an encounter with God, the most objective way for us to determine whether it is real or not is to see if there are any changes in the person. Do their actions change, do their thoughts and attitudes change in real and sometimes dramatic way. An encounter with God ought to bring a complete turnaround in someone’s life. So we see in the case of Saul that the real testament to his encounter with God was not his witness to it but the complete change in life that it brought about.

So, we are left with an answer that does not answer anything and can only be known to some internally, and not often, only when performing meditation or relaxing.

Meditation and relaxing are not the only times by any means when this happens.

On one side we have a product of the natural brain, that we can study and make sense of. On the other side we have God(s) and supernatural realms that are mysterious and we can never make sense of.

Since the natural is the understandable and testable realm, and because it explains the events rather than producing no real answer, I think we must conclude that it is true, unless and until we can be shown why we should even think there IS a supernatural realm, or anything like a God or Gods "out there".

I don’t agree with your assumption that there is some supernatural world separate to us and that God is out there. The idea of the supernatural does not have its origins in the Bible. And instead of saying God is “out there�, I think it’s a lot closer to the Biblical reality to say that although God is in a sense separate He is “in here� not “out there�. The words often translated as ‘miracle’ in the greek new testament are dunamis, semeion and teras. Dunamis and teras mean roughly power and semeion - signs. There is nothing to indicate that God is using magic or some ‘ethereal’ stuff outside of this reality. Human beings need a lot of tools and intermediaries in order to effect something. God can show his power by not need tools or intermediaries.

1: Some experances are of real things, some are of unreal things (dreams, inventions)
2: The natural world can be verifyed and agreed upon by others.
3: The "supernatural" world can not be verifyed or agreed upon by others.

Can dbohm show us any reasion to think that 3 is the answer to 1?
Rather, I would submit that given what we know it is at this time more reasionable to think that 2 is the reasion for 1 producing the unreal things and that 3 should be viewed as one of those things untill such time that we are given reasion to think otherwise.

Your logic is faulty. Mainly because you make a distinction between natural and supernatural that does not need to exist. You have made an assumption that just because certain events lets call them B events don't occur regularly enough or to everyone that therefore they do not belong underneath the umbrella of 'A' events which may in fact include both regularly occurring events as well as events that can only occur in certain special circumstances.

In reply to your points
1. You and I would both agree that sensory perceptions are interpreted by the brain and for that reason we need to use cautions sometimes even in our waking experiences. There are as you say other times that we know we are dreaming and imagining things. However some personal experiences of the divine are much more than dreams or imaginings or can simply be explained as tricks to the brain. They can be overwhelming and overpowering and feel more than real.
2. There is still a lot about the natural world we don’t understand. Scientific theories are always changing as new data comes to light. Therefore what we are ‘verifying’ is not yet and may never be fully understood. Also direct communication and revelation by God is a special thing. God can and does hide himself and chooses not to show himself to everyone.
3. I have some reservations about the use of the word ‘supernatural’. Being that as it is, for the reason mentioned in number two, real and direct communication by God is not ever going to be verified by everyone. In the Bible there is only one time where everyone will experience this and that is at the Day of Judgment after the resurrection of the dead. Not something we can get empirical data on now.
4. The closest thing we can get on determining real revelations by God is whether if there are prophecies in this revelation that they come true, and if it is a revelation of the kind that occurred to Saul on the road to Damacus, the change evidenced in that person’s life.

The bible also makes clear that the faith and purity of people’s lives also has a great influence on the possibility of miracles. This in itself excludes observation and experience of them without faith. You might then argue then it cannot be measurable or observable by others. That much I can agree with you, but that does not therefore mean it doesn’t happen.

[playhavock]

Dbohm has a number of problems in his argument, from appeals to emotion to argument ad ignorance, appeals to authority and other issues; I will be addressing the issues below.

Meaning
There are two kinds of meaning we experience. First is the everyday kind of meaning that we all experience. There is meaning in language. There is meaning in many of our day-to-day activities – we go to work to contribute to others and provide for ourselves and our family. We can read the synoptic chart and gather meaning to predict the weather for tomorrow. Meaning can be read everywhere. We are not ordinarily confronted with randomness and chaos. And those times when we do, we recognize them as randomness and chaos because of the overwhelming meaning and order we see everywhere else. All this meaning in the particulars of our existence seems to indicate that the whole or universal also contains meaning.

Due to how we find patterns in nature, I do not question that we pattern things to "mean" anything. A rock falling off a cliff onto a rock has no "meaning" to us, we observe it as something that happens, it is only when the same rock lands instead onto of say, our beloved pet that we try to find meaning to that event, "Why did this happen?" well, because the rock's support gave way and gravity and so on - but that does nothing for our emotional need to find a reason for this random event. We place meaning onto things that have none, because that is how our brain works.

So, I reject that there is in fact, any meaning to anything at all at least objectively speaking. This is an extreme to go to and has been done by others before myself and will I'm sure be done after me as well. To say that in fact there is no meaning to my own existence might seem a bit strange emotionally, but it might in fact be the fact. I do indeed have meaning subjectively to others, to myself, and to a lesser extent society as a whole.

As a race of humans our subjective meaning to our solar system is very, very minor, the small ships we launch to find out more will not impact the whole of the universe much, if at all - similarly a pebble tossed into an ocean might make a very, very small ripple, so we like to think that we humans matter, and we do - to each other, but that is all. It is in our brains and nowhere else.

To say that our existence means anything beyond that, to me actually makes existence less then what it is. I will explain as I am able, we can find or apply meaning to a cog made in a factory, the cog is used in machine that is helpful - but that cog was made for that express machine only and that is its use - nothing more or less, in fact this cog cannot be used for anything else, and once worn out is meaningless- this I fear would be the case if in fact we are made by something for some reason - whatever that reason is, we must fill it, or fail to do so, and failing to do so would mean the maker was incompetent to make us to fill the task at hand, but even filling the task at hand is all we are good for, what room is there for growth or freedom of any sort in this case?

I fear, there could be none at all.

Rather, if we have no meaning objectively speaking, then we are in fact free to make up any meaning that we wish, better still, we have no boundary we cannot cross, no one to tell us we are not just a cog meant to do this task and no other. To hammer in this point, it has been said by many Christians that the point of existence is to serve God.

Well, I do not wish to, so my point is then moot, I've been made in error if this is the case - rather if the whole point of existence is nothing at all- then I can make it whatever I want. I am only truly free if there is nothing to tell me what my reason to be is, only truly free if I myself can decide what my "point" is.

So to the universe, it has no meaning objectively that I can fathom, it exists much like a rock does, mattering only when the rock lands on something that I value, or in this case, producing me - the universe matters to me because the universe produced me, it did not do so for any reason and did not even know I was going to be. I can decide to be grateful, towards the universe, and I might even stretch that out to think the universe has a personality that decided to make me, and that seems to be what those who believe in Gods have done - make the meaning of the universe to be that the universe made me - rather self-centered - but that too does not surprise me, we used to believe our world was the center of the universe. We found it was not.

We often place humanity and ourselves on a pedestal, perhaps we should be more humble, I am but a speck of dust on a small blue dot, whatever I do or do not do will have no impact on the universe as a whole - and that’s okay, I can perhaps with others make a small ripple in the universe, only if we travel to the stars of course, but more than likely I will have little to no say in such matters, and again, I'm OKAY with that, because my meaning is my own, I make my own destiny, I write my own story, such as it is.

This is true freedom. Sometimes the most disliked things are the truth, the disliked fact might be that there is no meaning objectively speaking. But, I'm fine with that being the possible case. I do not have to insist there is objective meaning.

There is another kind of meaning that most of us become aware of also. That is the meaning or significance/purpose of our life. Much despair occurs when or if we believe that there is no meaning or significance to our lives.

I disagree! I find that because I accept there is no objective meaning that I am free to make any subjective meaning I wish - that is, awesome! It is exhilarating to me, to be that free - to really say "Hey, I can do anything!" and it is true, (within reason) I can do anything, (within my limits and laws and means and so on)

However, I would like to point out that this is statement is not logically valid, so we cannot be sure its conclusion is warranted, it contains an appeal to emotion "Much despair occurs..." that might be the case for many, or even all humans (although I do not experience it myself) but that does not make it true or false. It might give us an emotional reason to pretend or make up significance for our lives, and as I said above, I do think that is the case.

“Meaningless! Meaningless!� says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.�

Okay, so there is one thing in the Christian Bible I must agree with.

Sometimes when we contemplate our life, we ask ourselves what’s the point in it all? Why do we work hard, suffer stress to heap up wealth if it can’t bring any satisfaction or if it’s only going to be fritted away by the next generation or stolen? We see that death, pain and suffering come to us all and we ask why. What is all of it for? This quest for meaning was what began Siddhartha’s spiritual journey.

Well, sometimes is the key point here. We do as humans do this - BUT only after all other needs have been satisfied - that is, need for shelter, protection, food, community, and so on, only then do we have time to ponder such matters. One must then turn this around and ask it from a different point - if there is a thing that made us, why did it make life so full of things that we must do before we can have break to reflect that something might have made us?

The mortality and fragility of our own lives forces us in a way to look beyond.

Not always the case, plenty of people grow and die without ever "looking beyond" at all.

Why are there such humans that do not or cannot "look beyond" - is it because a deity made them unable to see, or because their brains do not process information in the way that other brains process? The naturalistic view seems more sound then the supernatualistic.

Nature does not normally create needs that can’t be met.

I would quantify this , nature never creates needs at all.

If we are hungry, we can eat, if thirsty, drink.

Only because life took that path to generate electro/chemical energy.

So does it not follow that this search for meaning doesn’t also have its food or drink so to speak.

Not a bit, for this is a false analogy fallacy. I understand it, of course, but it fails to do what my opponent is wanting it to do.

1. Nature does not produce needs.
2. Searching for meaning is not a need for all humans.

And finally, even if my opponent made his point he is now arguing against himself.

1A: Nature made the need of searching for meaning.
2A: Nature made humans with needs.
3A: Nature fills humans’ need of searching by making a thing to find (god)

So nature now makes god... I suppose that works for some theories of god, but not the one my opponent is after? Well perhaps he is, but he would have to show 1A to be true as well as 2A.

Our brokenness and need for redemption
What is striking about the human condition and almost universally acknowledged regardless of religious persuasion is the awareness of our brokenness. We just don’t even come up to our own standards.

Again this seems more like an appeal to emotions then any sort of argument. Religion, more to the point the Christian Religion certainly does stress that humans are "broken" or incomplete without God, but this is nothing more than circular logic, if my opponent could show that every religion past and current all shared the common trait of alluding to brokenness then he would at least have a honest statement here, but I see no reason to think that every or all or even most religions that this is the case, so the "universally" statement is currently unjustified.

So, to summarize this paragraph contains an unfounded statement of fact, not supported (that the human condition is universally seen as broken) and not even for just religion, but for non-religion as well? Quite a stance to take without any supporting data, research, paper. Second it contains a possible appeal to emotion and only works if you agree that you feel broken. Finally, it might be circular if one is assuming brokenness due to the religion of Christianity.

We let ourselves down and other people down even when they are the last people we would want to do that to. We are missing our integrity and wholeness and it is a kind of disease that can never be shrugged off.

Appeal to emotion. Still, a strong one, I do not just shrug this off as a fallacy - we do feel this, and it is something to note - I have regrets - I cannot undo the past. I can learn from it and try to not make the same error again.

In fact, this is integrity, to try my best to do what is right, even if I should fail time and again. I do not however, feel unwhole due to this. I think again this pictures humans with a "Jesus" sized chunk in them missing that God made to fill with Jesus - this picture has been painted by Christians, my opponent does not paint this picture now, but I must reflect that this is in essence a "something is missing!" statement followed by "it must be god!" it is, at the end even though it is true - we do often make errors, and perhaps we do often feel alone or empty or unwhole - we do so either because we are "made" to feel that way by some deity - or because our brains work to process things in such a way that we feel these things at times.

Only the pathological narcissist does not recognize they miss the mark and fail to fulfill their own ideals of behavior.

Perhaps true. However, I must ask why pathological narcissists exist, they will never feel the feelings as above, due to their own nature, so they will never feel the feelings you seem to suggest lead us to think there is a god. Did god allow these people into existence to miss the point of existence?

Why do we have this sense? Whether someone describes their morality as deontological or utilitarian we continue to fail even our own standards. And the more attention we pay on improving ourselves and the more introspection we do, the greater this awareness becomes. Regardless of all human effort we can never meet the standards. This leads us to ask if the disease has a cure? Is there a power outside ourselves that can make what is broken whole again? Religion and in particular the gospel say yes.

A subjectively sad and tragic painting of the human affair, it would make a great entry for a Christian book, from a skeptical point of view, I find this a pour look at humanity, painting us humans as broken things who can never fill their own standards and must then turn to god to make them whole - in the end can only be answered by that the god itself is the one responsible for making them that way, that I view as self-serving.

If we set the standards high and fail to meet them, I do not think that means we should lower the standards, I do think it means we should help each other reach them.

Rather than turning to god or religion, we should turn to each other, we can know that humans might help - we cannot know what god will do to help us, further, I would press the point that Christians have not shown a very good record of being more moral the anyone else, so what good did there god do for them?

Beauty
If we take the view that life and the universe is totally random and that we have evolved on the basis of the strength of survival – why do we see beauty beyond merely the sexually desirous?

Same reason a butterfly is attracted to flowers. But, if we are to appeal to beauty, then is it not fair to also appeal to ugliness?

Worse yet, the very thing my opponent tried to avoid - the false choice of evolution or creationism is right here! "If we take the view..." what other view is there, then the true one - at least regarding biological evolution.

However, rather than attack that, this seeks to say the whole universe is random, something my opponent cannot possibly know, and also misunderstands biological evolution as being from the "strength of survival" when we know that is not the only principle biological evolution functions upon, worse yet, the question seems to ask how can (X) be if these things are true, indicating two logical fallacies- argument of ignorance as well as augment from personal incredulity - and finally it begs to answer by saying we can only see beauty if evolution is false and/or the universe is not random.

The whole thrust of my opponent’s reach here is missed, if he wished to avoid drawing the line between reality of science and finding a reason for existence of God, he has failed to do so utterly in this paragraph.

Why do we find the golden ratio beautiful? Why do sunrises and sunsets even though we can see them every day, still inspire awe and a sense of beauty?

Ad ignorantum.
Answered by natural explanations.
Let’s look at it however, it assumes that everyone finds the golden ratio beautiful - when beauty itself is subjective. As far as sunrises/sunsets this too can be countered by asking what good such events do for a blind person or even someone who is color blind, as that might dim their ability to be in awe of them, and finally what about those who see such events but are not moved to awe by them?

This just leaves out too many groups of people and asks a question that even if we could not answer by anything at all would not therefor mean that the awe (some) are moved to is due to anything other than how the brain functions, totally natural.

What makes us stop at a landscape, a painting, literature, or when we see enemies reconcile, or witness an act of mercy and forgiveness as in the case of Nelson Mandela, or watch a mother and a child interact and say that’s beautiful?

Ad ignorantum.
Answered by natural explanations.
Again, flipping the coin, look at the ugliness of the world and ask what that tells us about? Is that showing an ugly god of some sort? I do not think that is the case for either beauty or ugliness - both are subjective, and neither can make any connection from them to a deity, even if we lack an answer for the questions.

What is remarkable for instance about the golden ratio is that it can be found throughout nature and that human beings immediately recognize its beauty and rightness – Could this be a signature of a grand designer?

Could a parasite indicate a grand designer?

I always find it strange that beauty is always played up rather than ugliness.

Miracles are always positive rather than negative things. I find that, very telling. We ignore the bad in favor of the good and imagine the good is everywhere, but what of the bad, the ugly, the yuckiness? Why do we recoil at the sight of maggots? Why does our own internal organs and sight of blood make us feel nauseous or queasy?

Even if we lack any answer to the questions, we cannot assume an answer - this is nothing more than an appeal to ignorance.

Communication and information processing at the atomic and cellular levels

Please present peer-reviewed published papers that show that communication as defined by a scientific text book is occurring at either the atomic or cellular levels (or both) same for information.

We have known since Einstein that mass equals energy. At the time and even today it is counterintuitive - how can an inert piece of matter be full of energy? But it is. And the atom bomb is testament to just how much energy.

This is just how reality is. I think that invoking mystery even if there is a mystery. Things are whatever they are. Although I would think that if there is a deity to find we would find it with science.

What energy reading would God have? The so called "hiddenness" of God is one of those impossible to pass problems for the skeptics. We here are asking this question about if experience can show that God is real - we both agree that experience shows us reality, but it can also show us unreality as well - deciding the difference requires science, the very thing that God is said to be bound.

Today advances in science are revealing how much ‘code’ and information processing is occurring at the microbiological and even sub-atomic level.

I often see the misunderstanding of "code" and the idea that this is information - it is but it is not - the issue might be in our limit of language - the zero and one of binary is code, and turns on or off circuits in a computer allowing more complex things to occur.

The argument is that because D.N.A. is like computer code - and we know computer code is made by a mind... there for the D.N.A. must be made by a mind - but it is nothing more than the watch maker argument. Simply because we see a similarity does not mean there is one, and moreover, without any quantifiable mind that we can point to for D.N.A. we can only know what can be known, in this case that it is purely natural, it is not designed as evolution designs nothing, it works because it is the configuration that held most stable and worked most often.

It seems as if information and intelligence pervades the universe. Freeman Dyson a physicist who received the Templeton Prize in 2000 said...

Although famous and highly educated people have ideas in many areas, quoting them cannot forward a debate, an essay yes - debate, no. This must be viewed as an appeal to authority - although it is trying to support the statements that there is some mind Dyson would call God, I could just as easily quote Dawkins and his many no-God statements - as well as numerous other scientists on the matter.

The augments must stand or fail on their own merit, the only time referencing anyone is not fallacy is when they have evidence that supports your augment at hand, at least from the stand point of an informal debate. We would soon get nowhere if we flung quotes at each other.

If Dyson has a published pier reviewed paper about God, we can look at that - but God falls outside the realm of science - so perhaps Dyson is not doing science when he says "God" but is stating his own subjective views about God.

Gerald Schroeder a world-renowned nuclear physicist writes
The surprise of science is that discoveries starting in the early 1900s have moved ever closer to the implication that the world we see about us, the objects in our daily lives that we take for granted as being solid, our bodies included, are expressions or manifestations of something as ethereal as energy. And that below the energy lies information, a totally nonmaterial basis for existence. While not calling this information spiritual, science has significantly closed the gap between the material and the spiritual. Schroeder, G, “The Hidden Face of God�, The Free Press: New York 2001,pg17

Although I must again dismiss this as an appeal to authority, it actually seems to argue for my side more than my opponents side, depending on how one decides to read it - he is not calling the "information" spiritual - and is saying that the gap is closing - so one day things treated as supernatural might be in fact found to be natural - and if our past is any indication that is what I expect to happen - we used to think thunder and lightning was caused by the gods, now we do not think that - well, many of us do not.

Yet some have moved god back behind the thing that makes lighting and thunder, so god is the cause, just hidden behind the goal post that is moving away as we close the gap. However, as we mention gaps it is intriguing that it seems that Schroder might be using god to fill that gap, rather than saying it is an unknown. Again, not science, but speculation and personal attitude.

This idea of the universe as information is not too far from the biblical understanding of Wisdom see Proverbs 8:22-31

The problem with quoting the bible, as I have said in other debates is that you must show that your idea of how this verse should be viewed is the right one. There is no way that I know of that you can do this, but I welcome you to try.

Consciousness – Freewill
Consciousness I see as our ability to observe ourselves think and exist. From this consciousness we are able to watch ourselves take one action or an alternative action/s and therefore we are able to make decisions and can be said to have freewill.

I'm not sure if freewill is a thing. Although there are many actions I can take that are under my control, there are many more actions I take that are not under my control. This seems then to be a mix of freewill and not-freewill.

Consciousness is a mystery.

Not as much as it once was.

But it is there self-awareness that allows us to recognize other persons and empathize with them. Because we can observe our own pain and joy we recognize the forces and power of pain and joy in others. We essentially recognize other consciousnesses through own consciousness.

I find nothing to disagree with here.

For many centuries most people have thought that consciousness is only a human attribute and perhaps some animals. However discoveries in science seem to indicate that this self-awareness pervades not only the animal kingdom and the biological but also the non-biological.

You’re going to have to give more than once source for this idea, I would want at least one pier reviewed paper on this subject. Schroeder might have written a book, but what in that book has been pier reviewed, tested - subjected to the rigors of cross examination? What indeed can be tested about many of his ideas in the quoted paragraph you give us?

Worse yet, he takes quantum mechanics and spins it into something it is not - makes it pseudo-science to get to an unwarned conclusion, for shame.

It seems that awareness and intelligence pervades the universe.

This should be rewritten to say "It seems that Schroeder agrees with dbohm's ideas about that there is awareness and intelligence in the universe even though we have not yet observed the whole universe..."

Of course, that rewriting sort of ruins the thrust of this appeal to authority. But, of course, that was my intent.

Recognition of intelligence/consciousness and the problem with solipsism
When I was a young teenager I read Descartes’ meditations. This is the book where Descartes comes to the conclusion that the only thing he can be certain of is “cogito ergo sum� or “I think therefore I am�. I thought about this a lot –(yes I’ve never been normal ) and I came to the personal conclusion that I couldn’t be sure of anyone’s existence except my own. Everyone could be robots and automatons or figments of my imagination but I knew ‘I’ definitely existed. I learnt later that this is called solipsism.
There is no way to disprove solipsism but it was something I grew out of quickly and most people do. Though it’s impossible to disprove, in light of experience it’s an untenable position. Consciousness recognizes consciousness.

I see nothing to disagree with here.

I would say, that the robot idea is closer to what we find with at least the Christan standpoint - we are "made" by "God" who made us (robots) to do (X) thing, in this case to KNOW God or belive in God, or something like that. So if we fail to do this task, it is our falt, never God's because .... God said so.

But this is impossible to prove - and there is the burdan, to prove it is true.

No one, NO ONE must disprove this to be true. The person who thinks it is true must show it is true, or it is nothing more then a belife in there brain. Show that the robot making God is real outside of the brain.

We see so much intelligence in the world so much awareness that is it so inconceivable that there is a single “Intelligence� that brought it all together and that we exist in its intelligence. In the words of Paul “For in him we live and move and have our being� Acts17:28.

Wait are you saying it is inconceivable that we exist in this "intelligence" or did you mean to write "Is it..." Oh boy there are some missing periods or something here.

I think that what my worthy opponent is trying to say here is that for him, it makes sense that we are not the only things with intelligence, and not just the animals, but everything has it to some degree, and this - somehow, but I'm not sure how, points to a "larger" intelligence that made it all - the problem with this is the problem that no one can answer- if intelligence this small requires a larger intelligence - what large intelligence is required of that one? And so on into infinity?

If one is content to say that the large intelligence needs nothing else to generate it, why can we not be content to think that our small intelligence needed nothing to generate it?

My opponents opening contains a number of fallacies, and only two sources of authority to point towards, both done as quotes rather than as part of an evidence producing exercise. For an essay the quotes would certainly help prove a thesis statement, but informal logic has its own rules - I'll leave it to the reader to decide if this warrants taking off points or not.

Still, what we have here seems nothing more than an invoking of mystery and ignorance to plead that everything is intelligence, all around us, even the rocks have it - well sort of - the molecules of them do - or the quantum does - something - and that means, somehow, we make a huge jump from that, even if we could establish this as a fact, rather than a huge assumption, that this means a large intelligence exists "out there".

Our brain, and our behavior sometimes can be mysterious, and often we ask "why" or "how" we came to be, every culture has its myths about creation, we have found bones buried with stones and other objects that are thousands of years old , suggesting that long ago we had beliefs about the afterlife, or something like it.

Yet, it is science that is unraveling the true "how" questions, or ancestors could not have imagined biological evolution, but it is a fact - we are gaining more understanding about abiogenesis, cosmology, and other things that were once only treated by religion and spirituality.

The mysteries are fading quickly. Yet, I do not see it warranted that due to things we might have no answer to, or even if we found that intelligence was all in the universe everywhere - even then we would still not know if there was a god - for that mind if it is a mind, or whatever it is or is said to be - is place far beyond our means to test or know it or reach it, and it is keeping very, very quiet.

There is wonder in this world, but that wonder is solvable by the natural sciences. There can be what we might call spiritualty, for I love to learn new things about reality and it makes me feel good - but I do not expect all people to feel good when they learn something new - because I understand that different people have different brains. I do not know if we will overcome our desire to believe in gods - some people can, others cannot.

However, the question is - does our internal experiences point to god - well, it points to an internal god to be sure - but a real god? Ah, that is the lacking connection my opponent must justify, and I think due to the number of errors here, has failed to do so, at least, so far.

I look forward to my worthy opponent bashing away at my augments and answering what questions he can in his rebuttal to this.

[dbohm]

Thank you Playhavock, you are definitely keeping me busy in my spare moments with this debate. It is also much more in depth than I thought it would be. I think the two of us are writing a small book

Playhavock has most definitely seized upon some of my weaknesses and he is making me work hard especially at the science side of my arguments.

I would like to concede that he has got me stuck at the second part of my meaning argument and I will need to review and think more deeply about my conclusions there.

However Playhavock is clearly misrepresenting me in some areas or avoiding the issues altogether. And instead of answering meaningfully with a thought-out alternative to the one I’m presenting he is jumping to cries of ‘argumentum ad ignorantiam and verecundiam’. If he carefully read my opening statement I make it clear that I am not ‘proving’ God here, instead I’m making the case that our experience is suggestive and indicative of the existence of God. By showing that there are elements of our experience that are not readily explainable by Physicalism, I argue that these are pointers to a metaphysics that very much allows a Theistic viewpoint. This, by the way, is not a ‘God in the Gaps’ argument. I’m not proposing that God is the unseen hand that makes stuff ‘work’. Rather these experiences and observations of science are footprints or shadows not conclusive by any means but certainly suggestive and give room for God’s existence.

As for Playhavock’s claims of ‘ad vercundiam’, I admit that I make that mistake in one place in my opening statement and acknowledge it in the following rebuttal of Playhavock:

Due to how we find patterns in nature, I do not question that we pattern things to "mean" anything. A rock falling off a cliff onto a rock has no "meaning" to us, we observe it as something that happens, it is only when the same rock lands instead onto of say, our beloved pet that we try to find meaning to that event, "Why did this happen?" well, because the rock's support gave way and gravity and so on - but that does nothing for our emotional need to find a reason for this random event. We place meaning onto things that have none, because that is how our brain works.

I am by no means arguing that meanings and patterns can be given to every act and circumstance. There is an old word for that ‘superstition’ and a modern psychological word ‘apophenia’. In fact our ability to recognize events as non-meaningful and accidental is precisely because we use a context of meaning whereby we can interpret things as being an accident or irrelevant to us.

However in the same situation if someone above were to cry out ‘watch out!’ – that does have meaning because we understand the language. There is nothing arbitrary or accidental about it. It is this kind of meaning that allows us to function in life and which characterizes the overwhelming majority of our experience.

You also mentioned the fact that ‘the rocks support gave way’ and ‘gravity’. We understand these things because the universe is comprehensible to us. I do see the distinction between meaning and all things being meaningful to us.

So, I reject that there is in fact, any meaning to anything at all at least objectively speaking. This is an extreme to go to and has been done by others before myself and will I'm sure be done after me as well. To say that in fact there is no meaning to my own existence might seem a bit strange emotionally, but it might in fact be the fact. I do indeed have meaning subjectively to others, to myself, and to a lesser extent society as a whole.

I understand the pull of this argument as I spent most of my life accepting it. This thinking is truly the product of our age. I describe it is materialistic scientism. Tolstoy very eloquently described this approach in Chap 6 of his Confessions (by the way this is not an appeal to authority, I just can’t put it into better words than Tolstoy)

“Inquiring for one region of human knowledge, I received an innumerable quantity of exact replies concerning matters about which I had not asked: about the chemical constituents of the stars, about the movement of the sun towards the constellation Hercules, about the origin of species and of man, about the forms of infinitely minute imponderable particles of ether; but in this sphere of knowledge the only answer to my question, "What is the meaning of my life?" was: "You are what you call your 'life'; you are a transitory, casual cohesion of particles. The mutual interactions and changes of these particles produce in you what you call your "life". That cohesion will last some time; afterwards the interaction of these particles will cease and what you call "life" will cease, and so will all your questions. You are an accidentally united little lump of something. that little lump ferments. The little lump calls that fermenting its 'life'. The lump will disintegrate and there will be an end of the fermenting and of all the questions." So answers the clear side of science and cannot answer otherwise if it strictly follows its principles.� Tolstoy Chpter 6 Confessions

I can readily accept that many people find this an acceptable conclusion to make about the meaning of life. I did for most of my life. The trouble I have with this worldview or weltanschauung is that proponents often claim that it is a proven and undeniable physical reality. In fact it is metaphysical understanding of reality. Metaphysics cannot be proven by physical reality, we can only draw inferences and make cogent arguments. The only reason I can see why it’s taken as proven and undeniable physical reality is the power of consensus since this is now the predominant viewpoint in academic and scientific circles and indeed popular culture.

What brought about my change in attitude to this metaphysics is the limit of its usefulness. It is tantamount to someone saying ‘I am what I am’. A reasonable response to such as statement is ‘Yes ok but how is such a statement beneficial to you or anyone else’.

As a race of humans our subjective meaning to our solar system is very, very minor, the small ships we launch to find out more will not impact the whole of the universe much, if at all - similarly a pebble tossed into an ocean might make a very, very small ripple, so we like to think that we humans matter, and we do - to each other, but that is all. It is in our brains and nowhere else.

There is a difference between significance and potentiality. Human beings may not take up much space and time and may not impact the universe much by their efforts of engineering etc., but that doesn’t infer that there isn’t great meaning and significance in human life. So far, life anywhere else is merely conjecture. Regardless of whether life is ever discovered outside our own planet, most will acknowledge that it is something very rare and special.

To say that our existence means anything beyond that, to me actually makes existence less then what it is. I will explain as I am able, we can find or apply meaning to a cog made in a factory, the cog is used in machine that is helpful - but that cog was made for that express machine only and that is its use - nothing more or less, in fact this cog cannot be used for anything else, and once worn out is meaningless- this I fear would be the case if in fact we are made by something for some reason - whatever that reason is, we must fill it, or fail to do so, and failing to do so would mean the maker was incompetent to make us to fill the task at hand, but even filling the task at hand is all we are good for, what room is there for growth or freedom of any sort in this case?

I fear, there could be none at all.

Rather, if we have no meaning objectively speaking, then we are in fact free to make up any meaning that we wish, better still, we have no boundary we cannot cross, no one to tell us we are not just a cog meant to do this task and no other. To hammer in this point, it has been said by many Christians that the point of existence is to serve God.

If the Christian God had intended us to be cogs He would not have allowed people choice and the ability of people to deny him and live however they liked. You have in fact forwarded a very good argument against Deism.

Well, I do not wish to, so my point is then moot, I've been made in error if this is the case - rather if the whole point of existence is nothing at all- then I can make it whatever I want. I am only truly free if there is nothing to tell me what my reason to be is, only truly free if I myself can decide what my "point" is.

And that is exactly the world we live in. You do have that choice and you can decide your “point�.

So to the universe, it has no meaning objectively that I can fathom, it exists much like a rock does, mattering only when the rock lands on something that I value, or in this case, producing me - the universe matters to me because the universe produced me, it did not do so for any reason and did not even know I was going to be. I can decide to be grateful, towards the universe, and I might even stretch that out to think the universe has a personality that decided to make me, and that seems to be what those who believe in Gods have done - make the meaning of the universe to be that the universe made me - rather self-centered - but that too does not surprise me, we used to believe our world was the center of the universe. We found it was not.

The philosophical viewpoint you espouse here is a very old one. It is found in Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius. You may enjoy reading them. You might also be interested in knowing that Lucretius came up with the theory of evolution some 1900 years before Darwin.

We often place humanity and ourselves on a pedestal, perhaps we should be more humble, I am but a speck of dust on a small blue dot, whatever I do or do not do will have no impact on the universe as a whole - and that’s okay, I can perhaps with others make a small ripple in the universe, only if we travel to the stars of course, but more than likely I will have little to no say in such matters, and again, I'm OKAY with that, because my meaning is my own, I make my own destiny, I write my own story, such as it is.

It may be worth considering at this point how much the decision you have made follows from your previous paragraphs where you stated you want to feel free and make your own “point� and how much the other way.

This is true freedom. Sometimes the most disliked things are the truth, the disliked fact might be that there is no meaning objectively speaking. But, I'm fine with that being the possible case. I do not have to insist there is objective meaning.

It seems to me that true freedom is that both of us are able to believe different things even though we come from similar cultures, live on the same planet and the same universe.

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There is another kind of meaning that most of us become aware of also. That is the meaning or significance/purpose of our life. Much despair occurs when or if we believe that there is no meaning or significance to our lives.


I disagree! I find that because I accept there is no objective meaning that I am free to make any subjective meaning I wish - that is, awesome! It is exhilarating to me, to be that free - to really say "Hey, I can do anything!" and it is true, (within reason) I can do anything, (within my limits and laws and means and so on)

However, I would like to point out that this is statement is not logically valid, so we cannot be sure its conclusion is warranted, it contains an appeal to emotion "Much despair occurs..." that might be the case for many, or even all humans (although I do not experience it myself) but that does not make it true or false. It might give us an emotional reason to pretend or make up significance for our lives, and as I said above, I do think that is the case.

I did say when or if. Not everyone has a problem with this but many, I would say by far the majority of people do when they are confronted with the reality of a pointless existence. Death is the logical and ultimate end of such an outlook. And since this outlook is part of popular culture today (it used to be held only by a wealthy intellectual minority) it’s no surprise to see the proliferation of vampire movies, csi dramas etc

Quote:
“Meaningless! Meaningless!� says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.�


Okay, so there is one thing in the Christian Bible I must agree with.

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Sometimes when we contemplate our life, we ask ourselves what’s the point in it all? Why do we work hard, suffer stress to heap up wealth if it can’t bring any satisfaction or if it’s only going to be fritted away by the next generation or stolen? We see that death, pain and suffering come to us all and we ask why. What is all of it for? This quest for meaning was what began Siddhartha’s spiritual journey.

Well, sometimes is the key point here. We do as humans do this - BUT only after all other needs have been satisfied - that is, need for shelter, protection, food, community, and so on, only then do we have time to ponder such matters. One must then turn this around and ask it from a different point - if there is a thing that made us, why did it make life so full of things that we must do before we can have break to reflect that something might have made us?

‘For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.’ Eccl 8:9-10

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The mortality and fragility of our own lives forces us in a way to look beyond.


Not always the case, plenty of people grow and die without ever "looking beyond" at all.

Agreed

Why are there such humans that do not or cannot "look beyond" - is it because a deity made them unable to see, or because their brains do not process information in the way that other brains process? The naturalistic view seems more sound then the supernatualistic.

I don’t see your point. A theistic universe is not a simple one with simple answers.

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Nature does not normally create needs that can’t be met.


I would quantify this , nature never creates needs at all.

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If we are hungry, we can eat, if thirsty, drink.


Only because life took that path to generate electro/chemical energy.

How can ‘life’ take a path with your metaphysics?

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So does it not follow that this search for meaning doesn’t also have its food or drink so to speak.


Not a bit, for this is a false analogy fallacy. I understand it, of course, but it fails to do what my opponent is wanting it to do.

1. Nature does not produce needs.
2. Searching for meaning is not a need for all humans.

And finally, even if my opponent made his point he is now arguing against himself.

1A: Nature made the need of searching for meaning.
2A: Nature made humans with needs.
3A: Nature fills humans’ need of searching by making a thing to find (god)

So nature now makes god... I suppose that works for some theories of god, but not the one my opponent is after? Well perhaps he is, but he would have to show 1A to be true as well as 2A.

I think I’m going to agree with you here. I need to clarify my views on this.

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Our brokenness and need for redemption
What is striking about the human condition and almost universally acknowledged regardless of religious persuasion is the awareness of our brokenness. We just don’t even come up to our own standards.


Again this seems more like an appeal to emotions then any sort of argument. Religion, more to the point the Christian Religion certainly does stress that humans are "broken" or incomplete without God, but this is nothing more than circular logic, if my opponent could show that every religion past and current all shared the common trait of alluding to brokenness then he would at least have a honest statement here, but I see no reason to think that every or all or even most religions that this is the case, so the "universally" statement is currently unjustified.

Ok I will grant you that my phrase ‘regardless of religious persuasion’ is too strong. I still maintain that this is the real human condition and I consider it fairly self-evident. But of course anyone can choose to argue about anything.

So, to summarize this paragraph contains an unfounded statement of fact, not supported (that the human condition is universally seen as broken) and not even for just religion, but for non-religion as well? Quite a stance to take without any supporting data, research, paper. Second it contains a possible appeal to emotion and only works if you agree that you feel broken. Finally, it might be circular if one is assuming brokenness due to the religion of Christianity.

I’m not making an appeal to emotion. Just turn the news on… on any day.

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We let ourselves down and other people down even when they are the last people we would want to do that to. We are missing our integrity and wholeness and it is a kind of disease that can never be shrugged off.


Appeal to emotion. Still, a strong one, I do not just shrug this off as a fallacy - we do feel this, and it is something to note - I have regrets - I cannot undo the past. I can learn from it and try to not make the same error again.

In fact, this is integrity, to try my best to do what is right, even if I should fail time and again. I do not however, feel unwhole due to this. I think again this pictures humans with a "Jesus" sized chunk in them missing that God made to fill with Jesus - this picture has been painted by Christians, my opponent does not paint this picture now, but I must reflect that this is in essence a "something is missing!" statement followed by "it must be god!" it is, at the end even though it is true - we do often make errors, and perhaps we do often feel alone or empty or unwhole - we do so either because we are "made" to feel that way by some deity - or because our brains work to process things in such a way that we feel these things at times.

You’re exactly right when you say I’m not painting a picture of a Jesus ‘size chunk’ missing in us. I’m not a Baptist but it does seem like a very crude caricature of their theology. In any case you are arguing against something I’m not even putting forward.

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Only the pathological narcissist does not recognize they miss the mark and fail to fulfill their own ideals of behavior.


Perhaps true. However, I must ask why pathological narcissists exist, they will never feel the feelings as above, due to their own nature, so they will never feel the feelings you seem to suggest lead us to think there is a god. Did god allow these people into existence to miss the point of existence?

This is a whole other topic of debate. The theistic viewpoint does not entail simple or black and white answers to all questions. In some ways it’s much easier to take an agnostic viewpoint on these matters because you don’t need to inquire and question deeply. It’s enough to say ‘it is because it is’.

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Why do we have this sense? Whether someone describes their morality as deontological or utilitarian we continue to fail even our own standards. And the more attention we pay on improving ourselves and the more introspection we do, the greater this awareness becomes. Regardless of all human effort we can never meet the standards. This leads us to ask if the disease has a cure? Is there a power outside ourselves that can make what is broken whole again? Religion and in particular the gospel say yes.


A subjectively sad and tragic painting of the human affair, it would make a great entry for a Christian book, from a skeptical point of view, I find this a pour look at humanity, painting us humans as broken things who can never fill their own standards and must then turn to god to make them whole - in the end can only be answered by that the god itself is the one responsible for making them that way, that I view as self-serving.

If we set the standards high and fail to meet them, I do not think that means we should lower the standards, I do think it means we should help each other reach them.

Rather than turning to god or religion, we should turn to each other, we can know that humans might help - we cannot know what god will do to help us, further, I would press the point that Christians have not shown a very good record of being more moral the anyone else, so what good did there god do for them?

You seem to be agreeing with me on human brokenness now. You just disagree with me on how we should deal with it.

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Beauty
If we take the view that life and the universe is totally random and that we have evolved on the basis of the strength of survival – why do we see beauty beyond merely the sexually desirous?


Same reason a butterfly is attracted to flowers. But, if we are to appeal to beauty, then is it not fair to also appeal to ugliness?

That would be for food right???

Worse yet, the very thing my opponent tried to avoid - the false choice of evolution or creationism is right here! "If we take the view..." what other view is there, then the true one - at least regarding biological evolution.

However, rather than attack that, this seeks to say the whole universe is random, something my opponent cannot possibly know, and also misunderstands biological evolution as being from the "strength of survival" when we know that is not the only principle biological evolution functions upon, worse yet, the question seems to ask how can (X) be if these things are true, indicating two logical fallacies- argument of ignorance as well as augment from personal incredulity - and finally it begs to answer by saying we can only see beauty if evolution is false and/or the universe is not random.

The whole thrust of my opponent’s reach here is missed, if he wished to avoid drawing the line between reality of science and finding a reason for existence of God, he has failed to do so utterly in this paragraph.

I do express incredulity, and your answer hasn’t taken my incredulity away. Please provide me with an alternative understanding of beauty from an atheistic physicalist worldview. I would genuinely find it interesting.

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Why do we find the golden ratio beautiful? Why do sunrises and sunsets even though we can see them every day, still inspire awe and a sense of beauty?


Ad ignorantum.
Answered by natural explanations.
Let’s look at it however, it assumes that everyone finds the golden ratio beautiful - when beauty itself is subjective.

Please provide your arguments on why beauty is subjective. Sure I grant strange aberrations in taste, and variations in taste, but I would be very surprised to hear some one ‘The Taj Mahal – Now that’s an ugly building!’ or ‘Mozart – What was he thinking when he composed Eine Kleine Nachtmusik!’

As far as sunrises/sunsets this too can be countered by asking what good such events do for a blind person or even someone who is color blind, as that might dim their ability to be in awe of them, and finally what about those who see such events but are not moved to awe by them?

This just leaves out too many groups of people and asks a question that even if we could not answer by anything at all would not therefor mean that the awe (some) are moved to is due to anything other than how the brain functions, totally natural.

I used sunsets by way of example only.

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What makes us stop at a landscape, a painting, literature, or when we see enemies reconcile, or witness an act of mercy and forgiveness as in the case of Nelson Mandela, or watch a mother and a child interact and say that’s beautiful?


Ad ignorantum.
Answered by natural explanations.

I look forward to them.

Again, flipping the coin, look at the ugliness of the world and ask what that tells us about? Is that showing an ugly god of some sort? I do not think that is the case for either beauty or ugliness - both are subjective, and neither can make any connection from them to a deity, even if we lack an answer for the questions.

I agree they are both sides of the same coin. I am not arguing here that there is no ugliness in the world. And I think the question of ugliness is equally intriguing.

I do look forward to your alternative explanations.

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What is remarkable for instance about the golden ratio is that it can be found throughout nature and that human beings immediately recognize its beauty and rightness – Could this be a signature of a grand designer?


Could a parasite indicate a grand designer?

Why not.

I always find it strange that beauty is always played up rather than ugliness.

Miracles are always positive rather than negative things. I find that, very telling. We ignore the bad in favor of the good and imagine the good is everywhere, but what of the bad, the ugly, the yuckiness? Why do we recoil at the sight of maggots? Why does our own internal organs and sight of blood make us feel nauseous or queasy?

I do think the question of ugliness raises equally interesting questions.

Even if we lack any answer to the questions, we cannot assume an answer - this is nothing more than an appeal to ignorance.

It begs the question – why don’t we have answers to these questions.

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Communication and information processing at the atomic and cellular levels


Please present peer-reviewed published papers that show that communication as defined by a scientific text book is occurring at either the atomic or cellular levels (or both) same for information.

I am a true layman here so I would not be able to provide you with such. What I can gather however is that physicists have conducted experiments that show subatomic matter mimicking communicative behavior. The authority I am chiefly using here, Gerald Schroeder, may be a theist but he is also a reputable nuclear physicist that is not making his physics up.

Also I’m not presenting it as proof of conscious communication, only as suggestive.

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We have known since Einstein that mass equals energy. At the time and even today it is counterintuitive - how can an inert piece of matter be full of energy? But it is. And the atom bomb is testament to just how much energy.


This is just how reality is. I think that invoking mystery even if there is a mystery. Things are whatever they are. Although I would think that if there is a deity to find we would find it with science.

I’m not intending to invoke mystery. The point I wanted to make was that our intuitive and sensory perception of the world can often be very different to reality. For instance to think that a solid object such as a rock is filled as far as we know by empty space and a very small proportion of stuff (i.e nuclei and electrons) is counter-intuitive but nevertheless true based on scientific experiment.

What energy reading would God have? The so called "hiddenness" of God is one of those impossible to pass problems for the skeptics. We here are asking this question about if experience can show that God is real - we both agree that experience shows us reality, but it can also show us unreality as well - deciding the difference requires science, the very thing that God is said to be bound.

Does a fish know that water is wet? If as the bible says ‘in him we live breathe and have our being’, its going to be hard to put God underneath a microscope and recognize Him. I don’t know whether that means its impossible but I do think it’s a different problem than watching penicillin grow.

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Today advances in science are revealing how much ‘code’ and information processing is occurring at the microbiological and even sub-atomic level.


I often see the misunderstanding of "code" and the idea that this is information - it is but it is not - the issue might be in our limit of language - the zero and one of binary is code, and turns on or off circuits in a computer allowing more complex things to occur.

The argument is that because D.N.A. is like computer code - and we know computer code is made by a mind... there for the D.N.A. must be made by a mind - but it is nothing more than the watch maker argument. Simply because we see a similarity does not mean there is one, and moreover, without any quantifiable mind that we can point to for D.N.A. we can only know what can be known, in this case that it is purely natural, it is not designed as evolution designs nothing, it works because it is the configuration that held most stable and worked most often.

I am not making a watchmaker argument at all here. Did you read my post? My point was that science is showing how much communication is going at the micro-biological level. For instance cells have been shown to be constantly sending signals to each other in very intelligent ways. See: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/ ... sidestory/
The behavior of cells is intelligent. And it looks very much like information is being passed from one cell to another via signals. It may also be suggestive of consciousness. But because we cannot enter someone or something else’s consciousness we cannot say for sure that therefore consciousness exists here. All I can make is inferences. We look at behavior. We do this for other human beings and conclude that they too have consciousness. Now neither I nor anyone else can say that there is consciousness in cells but their behavior is certainly suggestive. It is also suggestive that the carrying of ‘information’ is a salient feature of life at all levels.

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It seems as if information and intelligence pervades the universe. Freeman Dyson a physicist who received the Templeton Prize in 2000 said...


Although famous and highly educated people have ideas in many areas, quoting them cannot forward a debate, an essay yes - debate, no. This must be viewed as an appeal to authority - although it is trying to support the statements that there is some mind Dyson would call God, I could just as easily quote Dawkins and his many no-God statements - as well as numerous other scientists on the matter.


The augments must stand or fail on their own merit, the only time referencing anyone is not fallacy is when they have evidence that supports your augment at hand, at least from the stand point of an informal debate. We would soon get nowhere if we flung quotes at each other.

Ok agreed. I’m relying heavily on other people’s study and research here as I’m much more comfortable in historical and philosophical thought.

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Gerald Schroeder a world-renowned nuclear physicist writes
The surprise of science is that discoveries starting in the early 1900s have moved ever closer to the implication that the world we see about us, the objects in our daily lives that we take for granted as being solid, our bodies included, are expressions or manifestations of something as ethereal as energy. And that below the energy lies information, a totally nonmaterial basis for existence. While not calling this information spiritual, science has significantly closed the gap between the material and the spiritual. Schroeder, G, “The Hidden Face of God�, The Free Press: New York 2001,pg17


Although I must again dismiss this as an appeal to authority, it actually seems to argue for my side more than my opponents side, depending on how one decides to read it - he is not calling the "information" spiritual - and is saying that the gap is closing - so one day things treated as supernatural might be in fact found to be natural - and if our past is any indication that is what I expect to happen - we used to think thunder and lightning was caused by the gods, now we do not think that - well, many of us do not.

Yet some have moved god back behind the thing that makes lighting and thunder, so god is the cause, just hidden behind the goal post that is moving away as we close the gap. However, as we mention gaps it is intriguing that it seems that Schroder might be using god to fill that gap, rather than saying it is an unknown. Again, not science, but speculation and personal attitude.

I fail to see how Schroeder is using a ‘God of the Gaps’ argument here. What he is pointing out is that contrary to a materialist or for that matter dualist viewpoint there need not exist a hard line between the ‘natural’ and the ‘supernatural’. And what science might call ‘information’, religion has historically referred to this ‘information’ as ‘spiritual’.

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This idea of the universe as information is not too far from the biblical understanding of Wisdom see Proverbs 8:22-31

The problem with quoting the bible, as I have said in other debates is that you must show that your idea of how this verse should be viewed is the right one. There is no way that I know of that you can do this, but I welcome you to try.

Sorry I’m not sure what you are asking me to do here.

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Consciousness – Freewill
Consciousness I see as our ability to observe ourselves think and exist. From this consciousness we are able to watch ourselves take one action or an alternative action/s and therefore we are able to make decisions and can be said to have freewill.


I'm not sure if freewill is a thing. Although there are many actions I can take that are under my control, there are many more actions I take that are not under my control. This seems then to be a mix of freewill and not-freewill.

Agreed.

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Consciousness is a mystery.


Not as much as it once was.

Please provide evidence.

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But it is there self-awareness that allows us to recognize other persons and empathize with them. Because we can observe our own pain and joy we recognize the forces and power of pain and joy in others. We essentially recognize other consciousnesses through own consciousness.


I find nothing to disagree with here.

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For many centuries most people have thought that consciousness is only a human attribute and perhaps some animals. However discoveries in science seem to indicate that this self-awareness pervades not only the animal kingdom and the biological but also the non-biological.


You’re going to have to give more than once source for this idea, I would want at least one pier reviewed paper on this subject. Schroeder might have written a book, but what in that book has been pier reviewed, tested - subjected to the rigors of cross examination? What indeed can be tested about many of his ideas in the quoted paragraph you give us?

The whole point about consciousness and the point I’ve been making is not that consciousness can be proven, because no one can directly experience or observe someone else’s consciousness. We can only observe behavior and make inferences. And some behavior seems very suggestive of consciousness.

Worse yet, he takes quantum mechanics and spins it into something it is not - makes it pseudo-science to get to an unwarned conclusion, for shame.

I’m not at all saying that QM proves there is a God, but it sure does leave the door wipe open. There is not yet any definitive interpretation of QM experiments including the double split experiment. More recently Hawkings and others have argued for the existence of multiverses but so far this is an unproven theory. QM certainly brings into question a deterministic view of the universe and introduces some interesting problems of observer interference. And in the Schroeder quote I provided in my opening statement, he does point out the interesting phenomenon of particles in the double slit experiment ‘seeming’ to know whether there are two slits or only one slit open and behaving accordingly even though there is no reason for conditions at one slit to affect conditions at the other slit.

You might argue then that this is argument ad ignorantiam. Well, if I were to say that this therefore proves consciousness in this instance, it would be. But I’m not saying it proves only that it is suggestive. The most common arguments I seem to encounter from Atheists is that given enough time no room will be left for a theist viewpoint and often cite evolution and the big bang as examples. Some go so far as to bring up theories such as flat earth and geocentrism which have nothing to do with proofs for Theism. Despite these attacks, an allegorical or more than just literal reading of genesis has been strongly present in Talmudic as well as early Christian writings. And before the evidence for the Big Bang became overwhelming, prominent atheists theorized an eternal universe since this was thought as contrary to a theistic viewpoint as possible. Today the big bang theory is being used by some atheist propagandists as proof against Theism . It truly shows how subjective metaphysical interpretations of scientific data can be.

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Recognition of intelligence/consciousness and the problem with solipsism
When I was a young teenager I read Descartes’ meditations. This is the book where Descartes comes to the conclusion that the only thing he can be certain of is “cogito ergo sum� or “I think therefore I am�. I thought about this a lot –(yes I’ve never been normal ) and I came to the personal conclusion that I couldn’t be sure of anyone’s existence except my own. Everyone could be robots and automatons or figments of my imagination but I knew ‘I’ definitely existed. I learnt later that this is called solipsism.
There is no way to disprove solipsism but it was something I grew out of quickly and most people do. Though it’s impossible to disprove, in light of experience it’s an untenable position. Consciousness recognizes consciousness.


I see nothing to disagree with here.

I would say, that the robot idea is closer to what we find with at least the Christan standpoint - we are "made" by "God" who made us (robots) to do (X) thing, in this case to KNOW God or belive in God, or something like that. So if we fail to do this task, it is our falt, never God's because .... God said so.

But this is impossible to prove - and there is the burdan, to prove it is true.

No one, NO ONE must disprove this to be true. The person who thinks it is true must show it is true, or it is nothing more then a belife in there brain. Show that the robot making God is real outside of the brain.

Hmm.. Your theology is a little suspect.

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We see so much intelligence in the world so much awareness that is it so inconceivable that there is a single “Intelligence� that brought it all together and that we exist in its intelligence. In the words of Paul “For in him we live and move and have our being� Acts17:28.


Wait are you saying it is inconceivable that we exist in this "intelligence" or did you mean to write "Is it..." Oh boy there are some missing periods or something here.

Sorry typos.

I think that what my worthy opponent is trying to say here is that for him, it makes sense that we are not the only things with intelligence, and not just the animals, but everything has it to some degree, and this - somehow, but I'm not sure how, points to a "larger" intelligence that made it all - the problem with this is the problem that no one can answer- if intelligence this small requires a larger intelligence - what large intelligence is required of that one? And so on into infinity?

If one is content to say that the large intelligence needs nothing else to generate it, why can we not be content to think that our small intelligence needed nothing to generate it?

Maybe precisely because the rules get set by the original Intelligence.

My opponents opening contains a number of fallacies, and only two sources of authority to point towards, both done as quotes rather than as part of an evidence producing exercise. For an essay the quotes would certainly help prove a thesis statement, but informal logic has its own rules - I'll leave it to the reader to decide if this warrants taking off points or not.

Still, what we have here seems nothing more than an invoking of mystery and ignorance to plead that everything is intelligence, all around us, even the rocks have it - well sort of - the molecules of them do - or the quantum does - something - and that means, somehow, we make a huge jump from that, even if we could establish this as a fact, rather than a huge assumption, that this means a large intelligence exists "out there".

Our brain, and our behavior sometimes can be mysterious, and often we ask "why" or "how" we came to be, every culture has its myths about creation, we have found bones buried with stones and other objects that are thousands of years old , suggesting that long ago we had beliefs about the afterlife, or something like it.

Yet, it is science that is unraveling the true "how" questions, or ancestors could not have imagined biological evolution, but it is a fact - we are gaining more understanding about abiogenesis, cosmology, and other things that were once only treated by religion and spirituality.

Science can answer most if not all ‘how’ questions. I’m yet to see it answer any important ‘why’ questions. As science is not about answering any ‘whys’, scientistic materialists have supposed therefore that the ‘whys’ are non-existent or totally subjective.

The mysteries are fading quickly. Yet, I do not see it warranted that due to things we might have no answer to, or even if we found that intelligence was all in the universe everywhere - even then we would still not know if there was a god - for that mind if it is a mind, or whatever it is or is said to be - is place far beyond our means to test or know it or reach it, and it is keeping very, very quiet.

Deafening to some, utterly silent to others.

There is wonder in this world, but that wonder is solvable by the natural sciences. There can be what we might call spiritualty, for I love to learn new things about reality and it makes me feel good - but I do not expect all people to feel good when they learn something new - because I understand that different people have different brains. I do not know if we will overcome our desire to believe in gods - some people can, others cannot.

However, the question is - does our internal experiences point to god - well, it points to an internal god to be sure - but a real god? Ah, that is the lacking connection my opponent must justify, and I think due to the number of errors here, has failed to do so, at least, so far.

I think the findings of science and our internal experiences certainly are suggestive of God and most definitely allow for the possibility of God. As there is not positive proof, it allows some people to conclude that God does not need to exist and can be explained as a product of our imagination and as one possible answer to the social and psychological needs of some groups and individuals. But it also allows others to believe that there is a God. To make the jump from suggestive and possible to belief requires faith. This faith can be confirmed by further personal experiences but that is not always the case.

[playhavock]

Here is Dbohm's rebuttal to my opening augument (Post 3: Tue Dec 11, 2012 11:47 pm)

ref:How experience can point to reality.... possibility of God?

My rebutal to his current rebutal will be next due to a glitch we had in format in the debate, then we will resume the normal back and forth mode A/B/A/B

Since I will be quoting myself for reference, I use italics to show who is saying what.

------
playhavock

What happens, however, when the claim is put beyond the realm of testing, by its very definition? Well, that is when I become highly skeptical about that claim, they have an invisible and undetectable friend who only they can see and hear, why should I believe such a thing? Without any test to perform, I should reasonably conclude that something is wrong with their brain.

Dbohm

I agree with you that this is not proof that can be valuable to anyone except the recipient. And the recipient must judge the experience and determine whether they perceive rightly or are being tricked by their brain.

I disagree, the recipient is not in any position to determine if they are being tricked by their own mind, this is why the field of psychology is such a strange one, we must observe and probe into a place we cannot, quite - and can only decide based on observance of them. It is the outsider, who must then make an evaluation if the person is in fact being tricked by their brain. In other words, relying upon oneself is not enough, we can gather data about our own behaviors and brain from others and scientifically test our brain.

dbohm

For instance if someone had said to Saul before his conversion, I had a vision of Jesus and he told me that he was the Christ and you should stop persecuting his believers, his reaction would no doubt have been ridicule. When he himself had the vision on the road to Damascus, it changed everything for him.

I have no idea if there was a Saul or if any of the events that are written happened to him. If such a person did exist, and if they are being honest about what they said happened to them, and so on. We can never know if there was a person who had any experience at all in this matter. And, even if they claim to have an experience, that means nothing to anyone else - your point is, that experiences even that are unreal ones can change people, of course, people have claimed to have radical experiences and visions that change them, and there behavior can change over time or instantly.

What is the question however is not if things that brains can do will or can change people, but if that event is actually happening in the real world, or just there brain?

People have reported having a book (non-religious) and movies and even television shows change their life; that does not then equate to that book, movie or television show being an actual thing in realty - Star Trek might indeed and has inspired people to invent things, but it is not reality - it is fiction.

dbohm

By the same token I could say that I have had direct experiences of God and hear his voice on a regular basis, but that means nothing to you. Even though I could tell that I am a normal healthy person with no history of delusion and mental illness, it is still not your experience and cannot be verified by you.

I've never had anyone tell me they hear "God" on a daily basis, this seems very untypical mentally speaking, as long as God never tells you to harm yourself or anyone else, most psychologists would still have to write it up as schizophrenia or similar mental state - because we cannot detect God we must assume it is your brain that is talking to itself.

Still, there ARE ways we could in theory test this - God knows more then you personally could ever know. All we have to do is then, if God speaks to you daily have you ask God a question that only God could answer - if you do this, and the answer is one that you could not personally know, then we will have objective data that God is in fact speaking to you. If you cannot produce any answers to the questions that you would not yourself know, then God is not speaking to you and either there is something wrong in your brain and/or you are not being honest about God speaking to you.

dbohm

But just because someone else does not experience these things meant that it is non-existent.

Actually, that is pretty good evidence that it is in the brain and not in reality. You cannot experience my imagination for example, now it exists - but only in my brain.

I suppose we should clarify that by "non-existent" we mean things that do not exist in realty itself, rather than just in our brains but not in reality outside our brains.

dbohm

If we take God for instance to be omnipresent

Why would we? Do we have any reason to think it is? What proof of there that it is that? This premise is not yet supported.

dbohm

– that is present in every living and non-living matter, He does not need an intermediary to communicate with the world. Sometimes He does but other times he doesn’t.

How do you know?
What proof is there that it is communicating at all?

dbohm

We however are not omnipresent and must just our body to communicate and perform our will.

We are limited. We agree on this at least.

playhavock

Still, we have the believers of God and Gods proclaim that most of the world believes in God, or Gods, so it is perfectly normal, well - the first lie is already evident, not all people believe in the same way, or the same amount, or even believe in the same type of God. So lots of people believe in lots of things that many of them might call God, but when defined properly are so dissimilar to each other that we can see that no, not all people hold the same belief, and perhaps then, it is not so normal or common after all to believe in this thing.

dbohm

Playhavock I would have thought your study of logic would let you see that just because many people have different beliefs about God doesn’t therefore mean that there isn’t God.

Strawman: No where do I say that because there are different beliefs that therefor there is not a God.

What I did say is that everyone has their own version of what God means. That means that when you say "God" you mean Jesus and when Hindu says "God" they might be referring to Shiva the Destroyer. The point is that not all humans are pointing to the same thing, so it is not normal or common to believe in "God" because it is not a common "God" that the world believes in but a vast variation of Gods. It’s confusing because we choose to have the same word for several different concepts.

Still, people report having "experiences" with or about God, what can we make of this? Two possibilities, there are many Gods all interacting with people at various times in different ways, or, the more likely explanation, their brains are producing an experience for them. Why? Why should a brain do this? Many possible answers are likely, one being that the brain enjoys the patterns that it can hold when it thinks about God, and the brain then releases chemicals to encourage the conscious brain to keep on doing its thing, so the subconscious is in essence, feeding the conscious mind the chemical food so the subconscious keeps getting the patterns it likes, and the whole brain is happy, the active person reports an experience of God, and the outsider is unable to experience it with them, they must experience it themselves.

You are presenting only two alternatives and ignoring a very important third. Namely that some people have genuine communication with God and other people have non-genuine. A biblical viewpoint can allow for communication with God, deception by demons, mental illness, excitability and tricks of the brain.

playhavock

Now, we come to the problem of those who never experience such a thing, both believers and non-alike have reported trying many times and failing, to experience God in any way or in the powerful ways that others report, even starvation (fasting) might not produce any experience in these brains. So, either the Gods out there don't like them, or the natural explanation that there brain has evolved differently due to differentiation of species, and they are just not wired to experience this thing at all, there subconscious and conscious mind just refuse to play this strange game no matter how much the active person demands in their brain that it performs (although to the believer they are praying or meditating to reach God).

dbohm

Even a casual reading of the Bible will show that God does not choose to communicate in a direct and obvious way with the majority of people.

Circular logic. Assuming the bible is true in order to show that it is true. Other religions also might claim that God(s) do not communicate in a direct/obvious way.

And he seems only not communicate in this way to the ‘wicked’ in historically important moments in God’s plans - as in the escape from Egypt, the writing on the wall in Babylon etc.

We have no reason to think the events in the bible are actual as yet. The debate is on if experience can show there is an actual God outside of the brain, not on the Christian Bible and its various myths, however, if you have not shown us that the Christian Bible is true, and you have not, then it is not a source we can use in this debate.

As for your comment about evolution and that there is a differentiation of species, that is an interesting idea but I’m not sure how you could prove it.

Evolution is all about differentiation within the species. We can observe that brains work differently from each other. So it has been proven already, I could list some articles on brains and how differently they are from each other if you require the sightings.

dbohm

What I would say is that real communication and conversation with God ought to bring transformation of Character and that transformation should be evident to everyone.

Yet it is not. What is the transformation, is it the same every time? If so, we could make an observable test for it, yet there is no test at all for anything. If we take a large sample of people who are trying to communicate with various Gods what transformation should we expect to observe from any of them?

What we have here is an unfounded and untested idea - that people change when exposed to God - but only when it is REAL communication, so the people that try and do not change can be said to have not experienced REAL communication, thus the whole idea itself becomes untestable as there is always a handy excuse for people not changing. You’re excluding all failures to change. Only the people that change are ones who had real communication with God, worse yet, you have not defined what the change is, nor is there any way to show one God is changing people over any other God.

People might change due to the social pressures and people around them encouraging change in them, but this does not indicate God. Produce a repeatable test that shows otherwise, for without it this is no more than speculation and bias at work.

dbohm

But maybe you’re right, some people’s genetics could be open to receiving this kind of communication and change of character than others. The only thing I would point out is that these kinds of revelations normally come midstream in someone’s life not from childhood.

Do you have any data on this?

playhavock

Is the natural explanation the true explanation? Or is the supernatural Gods explanation the true one? How can we know? If we lack testing, and it seems we do for the supernatural, perhaps it is best then to assume the natural until such tests can be produced.

But, of course, we reach the impasse - as the very word supernatural is by definition forever untestable, it is above and beyond our ability to test, and the only way to "know" it is to experience it, so for those who cannot, it does not exist - back to square one.

Of course, it COULD be real and there brain is simply not wired to receive that reality, but again, this raises the issue of why God(s) would make it that way, well, perhaps the believer will retort that God(s) are a mystery and we can't answer that question.

dbohm

I would argue instead that every human can receive it just that it is not something that can be done through human effort and will alone.

Okay, so why is it that God is not helping people to reach it? If will and effort are not enough, and we agree on this premise - fine, then why is it that those people are not suddenly being snagged by God in some amazing transformation? If they tried to get to God, and failed, that’s it, we never hear from God again.

Matt of the Atheist experience was going into apologetics and was a steadfast Christian, now he is a steadfast atheist and even anti-theist. God is clearly not doing anything to reach Matt, unless we are to believe that God is trying but Matt is locking God out somehow, due to "freewill". Again and again and failure of God to reach humans is in the end blamed on humans, not on God - God wants to reach us, but we say "No" to God in our "heart" so God can't reach us. It is very strange logic.

No matter how much I personally insist that I am open to God reaching me, I can be told that clearly I am not since I still do not believe in God, I am strawmaned that I must be telling God "no" even if I am not. It is the ultimate excuse of the lack of any observable evidence that God cares anything about us - that God itself gave us the ability to deny God itself - but wait there’s more! In Christianity not only did God give us the ability to deny God - but then will punish those who do that!

Yet, not all Christans even think the above is correct. There is no hell for them, only a true death for those who did not belive corectly, so the athest is right in thinking when they die they will experance nothing at all. Still, this meens that if you belive the "right" way you are rewarded, and if not you get nothing.

The system is nothing more then empty promices that we can not verify.

Perhaps there is nothing to reach us or transform us - in reality it is us who are changing, because we want to and for no other reason. The answer is the power of the brain we have, not any divine power. Perhaps that is in fact the truth. As of now, we have no justified reason to think otherwise.



dbohm

Further I would like to make the point that should someone have an encounter with God, the most objective way for us to determine whether it is real or not is to see if there are any changes in the person. Do their actions change, do their thoughts and attitudes change in real and sometimes dramatic way. An encounter with God ought to bring a complete turnaround in someone’s life.

Again, I think the assumption is that said turnaround would be for "good" rather than bad. But again, how does this prove anything, what is the change, can it be quantified, why is there no test for this, is it only true of Christian faith or of all religions? Is it true in non-religions as well?

If I become Buddhist and suddenly change, does that mean Buddhism is true? If I become Skeptic and am a better person then I was as a Christian does that mean Skepticism is true and Christianity is not? No. This is not logic.

No matter the behaviors of a group of people, or even one person - that does not and cannot prove anything about the truth claims of that group or person. They might be the most wonderful person in the world, but still have no truth value in their claims, or they might be the most horrid person in the world but have nothing but true statements.

This is the essence of the Ad Hominem logical fallacy - a person’s character has no bearing on if they are making true or false statements. The truth is independent of humans.

If Dbohm can produce a repeatable test that shows that Christianity produces this sudden turn around every time (or more often then not) and that other religions fail to do so, then we might have something - but there is no such test.

So we see in the case of Saul that the real testament to his encounter with God was not his witness to it but the complete change in life that it brought about.

By this logic I could say that when Eustace (in C.S. Lewis' novel "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader") became a dragon and then met Aslan, he finally became a nice person and not a spoiled brat. That must mean Aslan is real.

playhavock

So, we are left with an answer that does not answer anything and can only be known to some internally, and not often, only when performing meditation or relaxing.

dbohm

Meditation and relaxing are not the only times by any means when this happens.

Perhaps strange experiences happen outside these times, I might indeed stand correct when I say "Only" I should say "more often they happen when performing meditation/relaxing."

playhavock

On one side we have a product of the natural brain that we can study and make sense of. On the other side we have God(s) and supernatural realms that are mysterious and we can never make sense of.
Since the natural is the understandable and testable realm, and because it explains the events rather than producing no real answer, I think we must conclude that it is true, unless and until we can be shown why we should even think there IS a supernatural realm, or anything like a God or Gods "out there".

dbohm

I don’t agree with your assumption that there is some supernatural world separate to us and that God is out there. The idea of the supernatural does not have its origins in the Bible. And instead of saying God is “out there�, I think it’s a lot closer to the Biblical reality to say that although God is in a sense separate He is “in here� not “out there�. The words often translated as ‘miracle’ in the Greek New Testament are dunamis, semeion and teras. Dunamis and teras mean roughly power and semeion - signs. There is nothing to indicate that God is using magic or some ‘ethereal’ stuff outside of this reality. Human beings need a lot of tools and intermediaries in order to affect something. God can show his power by not need tools or intermediaries.

I do not assume anything, the supernatural/natural split is often promoted by many theists. My augments do not rest upon them being actually separate things. If God is not "out there" then where is God, why can we not test for it directly or measure it or reveal it at all?

God as a concept exists in the brain - does it exist outside of the brain? That is what we are trying to get an answer for.

playhavock

1: Some experiences are of real things, some are of unreal things (dreams, inventions)
2: The natural world can be verified and agreed upon by others.
3: The "supernatural" world cannot be verified or agreed upon by others.
Can Dbohm show us any reason to think that 3 is the answer to 1?
Rather, I would submit that given what we know it is at this time more reasonable to think that 2 is the reason for 1 producing the unreal things and that 3 should be viewed as one of those things until such time that we are given reason to think otherwise.

dbohm

Your logic is faulty.

(in my best Valley Girl voice) "Oh no you didn't!" (humor)


dbohm

Mainly because you make a distinction between natural and supernatural that does not need to exist. You have made an assumption that just because certain events let’s call them B events don't occur regularly enough or to everyone that therefore they do not belong underneath the umbrella of 'A' events which may in fact include both regularly occurring events as well as events that can only occur in certain special circumstances.

You cannot produce a miracle event on demand.

No one can.

Every time anything define is said to happen it is not something we can test - it is not regular and it defies ability to be tested for, we could and would never be able to identify a real miracle event. The Vikings believed that lighting was caused by the Gods - we now know the cause of lighting. It is the monotheist who still says that the cause is itself caused by God, where is the proof of this?

dbohm

In reply to your points
1.You and I would both agree that sensory perceptions are interpreted by the brain and for that reason we need to use cautions sometimes even in our waking experiences. There are as you say other times that we know we are dreaming and imagining things. However some personal experiences of the divine are much more than dreams or imaginings or can simply be explained as tricks to the brain. They can be overwhelming and overpowering and feel more than real.

Are you saying that they are so real that they "can’t be" explained as just tricks of the brain? How do you know that? Any research or data on it? Are we justified in concluding the mysterious event is unable to be explained by the natural yet?

dbohm

2. There is still a lot about the natural world we don’t understand. Scientific theories are always changing as new data comes to light. Therefore what we are ‘verifying’ is not yet and may never be fully understood.

Agree. But, even if I cannot or will never understand something, it does not mean that the answer to that something is God. Rather the answer is "I do not know".

dbohm

Also direct communication and revelation by God is a special thing. God can and does hide himself and chooses not to show himself to everyone.

Special pleading: Requires that we place God as something that can never be tested and or known for, only those who God choose to show itself to can know that God exists. If God decides to show itself as a cat to someone they will believe in the Egyptian God Cat, and that "proved" God existed to that person.

Circular logic: Requires we assume that dbohm's idea of God is true, that Dbohm somehow knows that God performs this way.


dbohm

3. I have some reservations about the use of the word ‘supernatural’. Being that as it is, for the reason mentioned in number two, real and direct communication by God is not ever going to be verified by everyone.

It has yet to be verified by anyone as far as I am aware.

dbohm

In the Bible there is only one time where everyone will experience this and that is at the Day of Judgment after the resurrection of the dead. Not something we can get empirical data on now.

Unless and until we have any evidence, we must suspend judgment.

dbohm

4. The closest thing we can get on determining real revelations by God is whether if there are prophecies in this revelation that they come true, and if it is a revelation of the kind that occurred to Saul on the road to Damascus, the change evidenced in that person’s life.

Again, change proves nothing. Prophecies that are written in the Christian Bible and Torah (Old Testament) are so vague and ambiguous that they can be "filled" by any number of events, and ALL of Jesus's fulfillments of prophecies are written knowing what the prophecy is calling for , and most of those are objectively invalid even using the Old Testament as the writer was clearly referencing a different event. Finally, what is a prophecy, and how does it prove anything, even if it comes to pass?

James Randy used to write the full date on a paper and write "today I will die" and carry it around, if he had died, people would find the paper and think he was a prophet - if I (or anyone) did this every day , eventually one day the paper will be true. My point is that even if we had any prophecy that turned out to be totally 100% correct it would prove nothing. Only if you could show a valid prediction of the future every time with 100% accuracy would that show something, but it would still not prove anything other than a strange ability. To assume it proves God is again an Ad Ingorantum argument.

dbohm

The bible also makes clear that the faith and purity of people’s lives also has a great influence on the possibility of miracles. This in itself excludes observation and experience of them without faith. You might then argue then it cannot be measurable or observable by others. That much I can agree with you, but that does not therefore mean it doesn’t happen.

Special pleading: One must have faith (believe) that miracles can happen for them to even be possible.

Well, of course someone who believes that a miracle can happen might believe that (X) event is one, even if (X) event is not one.

What we do not see is where a gathering of faith people of a certain faith are concentrated that strange events happen. If this did occur we would be able to observe it.

In essence, the excuse that miracles are not happening is that there are not enough people of faith in a given area, how many people are required is of course not quantified. It is nothing more than a way to avoid any burden to prove that any miracle did in fact occur.

Using the text of the bible, one could point to the lack of purity and lack of faith during the time of Noah - the flood is a huge miracle because in order to flood all or even most the world and spare the animals would require miracle. Saul whom my opponent has referenced several times had no faith and would not be able to have his vision.

Also, this would preclude anyone ever coming to faith by witnessing a miracle event.

My opponent does agree that it is not measurable or observable, but it might happen. The issue with this is similar to what we can observe with people who claim to have had an alien encounter.

Let us take a quick look at such a person with a thought experiment.
Mr. B claims to have had an alien encounter, and others who knew Mr. B before said encounter now claim that Mr. B has changed his behavior, he used to do drugs and hang out with gangs, now he is clean and volunteers his spare time at a soup kitchen no longer hanging out with gangs. His life has changed ever since this supposed encounter. Mr. B says that we have no evidence of the aliens because there ships are cloaked. We have no evidence of the ship or aliens, only his personal account of what happened.

According to my opponents reasoning, the above thought experiment would lead us to conclude that Mr. B has in fact encountered aliens and they have cloaked ships.

The problem is this is just not reasonable. Without any evidence there are alien ships we must suspend judgment there are in fact cloaked alien ships flying around. We lack data that confirms the positive, and no matter how many people claim personal accounts of this, we still lack the data to confirm it as actual.

Granted, far fewer people believe they have encountered aliens then those who claim to have encountered God, angels, demons, sprits and so on, but the point remains, without positive reasons, we must suspend judgment, we must remain unsure the event ever occurred, the mere possibly that it can occur does not mean it did. In fact, we can say no more on the matter without an appeal to ignorance.

Yes, many things are "possible" or we grant that they might be possible, but merely being possible does not make them so.

In order for us to properly conclude that an event is so, we require some empirical evidence, a repeatable test. Here we admit we have neither, so we look for a logical augment.

For Mr. B we lack the first two, could Mr. B produce a logical augment - Alien ships cannot be seen due to cloaking. He was kidnaped and experienced the aliens who helped him change his life. His friends testify to his change.

I can identify the problems with this sort of reasoning, can you the reader and my worthy opponent do the same?

--

A second rebutal is on its way. See you then!

[playhavock]

Here we go again!

(Dbohm, you had some period typos, please fix those so I can make sure I've gotten that bit right.)

More rebuttals follow:

Thank you Playhavock, you are definitely keeping me busy in my spare moments with this debate. It is also much more in depth than I thought it would be. I think the two of us are writing a small book

You are welcome.

Playhavock has most definitely seized upon some of my weaknesses and he is making me work hard especially at the science side of my arguments.
I would like to concede that he has got me stuck at the second part of my meaning argument and I will need to review and think more deeply about my conclusions there.

Glad I could help you relook at your view, this is what we are doing in essence, putting to the test our ideas.

However Playhavock is clearly misrepresenting me in some areas or avoiding the issues altogether. And instead of answering meaningfully with a thought-out alternative to the one I’m presenting he is jumping to cries of ‘argumentum ad ignorantum and vericundum’. If he carefully read my opening statement I make it clear that I am not ‘proving’ God here, instead I’m making the case that our experience is suggestive and indicative of the existence of God.

Whenever I sight logical fallacy you can be sure I am doing so only because it is a logical fallacy.

Proving God, no - the question at hand is if this or that experience shows that God is a possibility that is to say possibly that it exists not just in the brain, due to the formatting of your debate so far, I do not see this being justified as yet. The augments are just not good enough to do the job, not with the number of fallacies they contain.

By showing that there are elements of our experience that are not readily explainable by Physicalism, I argue that these are pointers to a metaphysics that very much allows a Theistic viewpoint. This, by the way, is not a ‘God in the Gaps’ argument. I’m not proposing that God is the unseen hand that makes stuff ‘work’. Rather these experiences and observations of science are footprints or shadows not conclusive by any means but certainly suggestive and give room for God’s existence.

That is what I am looking for - is there any experience that anyone has that is not "readily" explained by physicalism?

If one could sight an experience and claim it is unexplained, then they cannot in turn explain that by saying it is indicating God, to do so makes no sense, you are saying the unexplained is in fact explained!

Even so, let us assume we found an experience that cannot be or is not easily explained by physicalism, does that mean we are justified in inferring that it is anything beyond?

As for Playhavock’s claims of ‘ad vercundium’, I admit that I make that mistake in one place in my opening statement and acknowledge it in the following rebuttal of Playhavock:

playhavock

Due to how we find patterns in nature, I do not question that we pattern things to "mean" anything. A rock falling off a cliff onto a rock has no "meaning" to us, we observe it as something that happens, it is only when the same rock lands instead onto of say, our beloved pet that we try to find meaning to that event, "Why did this happen?" well, because the rock's support gave way and gravity and so on - but that does nothing for our emotional need to find a reason for this random event. We place meaning onto things that have none, because that is how our brain works.

Dbohm

I am by no means arguing that meanings and patterns can be given to every act and circumstance. There is an old word for that ‘superstition’ and a modern psychological word ‘apophenia’. In fact our ability to recognize events as non-meaningful and accidental is precisely because we use a context of meaning whereby we can interpret things as being an accident or irrelevant to us.

I agree, I would suggest then, that God is nothing more than superstition, extended to explain things that we cannot still explain or that humans have problems explaining, be it nature, biology, or random events.

Dbohm

However in the same situation if someone above were to cry out ‘watch out!’ – that does have meaning because we understand the language. There is nothing arbitrary or accidental about it. It is this kind of meaning that allows us to function in life and which characterizes the overwhelming majority of our experience.
You also mentioned the fact that ‘the rocks support gave way’ and ‘gravity’. We understand these things because the universe is comprehensible to us. I do see the distinction between meaning and all things being meaningful to us.

Quite so, I think that we can agree that meaning has two terms here - one is the meaning we as humans have given words, but that is not I think, the meaning you were going after - rather the meaning of "I have meaning" is subjective rather than objective. Words must be objective - that is we must agree upon what they are. When we say that life has meaning this is subjective in nature.

playhavock

So, I reject that there is in fact, any meaning to anything at all at least objectively speaking. This is an extreme to go to and has been done by others before myself and will I'm sure be done after me as well. To say that in fact there is no meaning to my own existence might seem a bit strange emotionally, but it might in fact be the fact. I do indeed have meaning subjectively to others, to myself, and to a lesser extent society as a whole.

Dbohm

I understand the pull of this argument as I spent most of my life accepting it. This thinking is truly the product of our age. I describe it is materialistic scientism. Tolstoy very eloquently described this approach in Chap 6 of his Confessions (by the way this is not an appeal to authority, I just can’t put it into better words than Tolstoy)

You did very well avoiding an appeal to authority, it is only that when you are sighting him to prove a premise, in this case you are sighting him as reference, I know it is a hard line to draw, for a better understanding of when it is a fallacy and when it is not, I can only reference the rules of logic, (explaining it would require a chapter of a book or more)

Tolstoy

“Inquiring for one region of human knowledge, I received an innumerable quantity of exact replies concerning matters about which I had not asked: about the chemical constituents of the stars, about the movement of the sun towards the constellation Hercules, about the origin of species and of man, about the forms of infinitely minute imponderable particles of ether; but in this sphere of knowledge the only answer to my question, "What is the meaning of my life?" was: "You are what you call your 'life'; you are a transitory, casual cohesion of particles. The mutual interactions and changes of these particles produce in you what you call your "life". That cohesion will last some time; afterwards the interaction of these particles will cease and what you call "life" will cease, and so will all your questions. You are an accidentally united little lump of something. that little lump ferments. The little lump calls that fermenting its 'life'. The lump will disintegrate and there will be an end of the fermenting and of all the questions." So answers the clear side of science and cannot answer otherwise if it strictly follows its principles.� Tolstoy Chapter 6 Confessions

I couldn't say it better myself. What wonder in those words, I am in awe. I totally emotionally agree with all of what he said there. Logically speaking, I find no reason to object to this idea.

I can readily accept that many people find this an acceptable conclusion to make about the meaning of life. I did for most of my life. The trouble I have with this worldview or weltanschauung is that proponents often claim that it is a proven and undeniable physical reality.

I do not think it is provable, perhaps one could offer a logical augment for it, but proven no. I outline my idea that seems is shared by others that life for me requires no objective meaning, I can subjectively decide what it is, and I am quite happy to do so. This is to point out that not all humans have this desire to find meaning in their lives. Is no meaning a meaning? Perhaps! If so, then I have found my meaning - but it is still my own, subjective in nature, and does not lead me to see God or think God exists. Looking for the answer, I found it was not God,

I found my own meaning or lack thereof.

For me this does not show there is no God. Nor does it show there is. If your argument is that the desire we have for meaning somehow infers and/or allows the possibility of God... I just do not see the connection, the conclusion is not yet warranted by this premise.

Dbohm

In fact it is metaphysical understanding of reality. Metaphysics cannot be proven by physical reality, we can only draw inferences and make cogent arguments. The only reason I can see why it’s taken as proven and undeniable physical reality is the power of consensus since this is now the predominant viewpoint in academic and scientific circles and indeed popular culture.

Metaphysics... sigh. I never really know what to do with the idea of metaphysics, it is an invention of our brain, it does not really exist. It serves to try to explain things, but I do not think it does a very good job of it. Since it is not a thing, I cannot really speak to it or about it.

Dbohm

What brought about my change in attitude to this metaphysics is the limit of its usefulness. It is tantamount to someone saying ‘I am what I am’. A reasonable response to such as statement is ‘Yes ok but how is such a statement beneficial to you or anyone else’.

So, you don't like metaphysics either? Let’s never use that word again! (humor) Kidding aside, your augment is in essence that most humans look for meaning, and that this is subjective in nature, and that this somehow means that our looking for meaning means there is a meaning.

I just do not think this is logical, simply because humans look for something does not then mean that something exists.

However, I'm just not sure what your argument is trying for here. I think this premise might have to be dropped in order to have a better overall argument, unless you think that it is required for your argument to stand.

playhavock

As a race of humans our subjective meaning to our solar system is very, very minor, the small ships we launch to find out more will not impact the whole of the universe much, if at all - similarly a pebble tossed into an ocean might make a very, very small ripple, so we like to think that we humans matter, and we do - to each other, but that is all. It is in our brains and nowhere else.

Dbohm

There is a difference between significance and potentiality. Human beings may not take up much space and time and may not impact the universe much by their efforts of engineering etc., but that doesn’t infer that there isn’t great meaning and significance in human life. So far, life anywhere else is merely conjecture. Regardless of whether life is ever discovered outside our own planet, most will acknowledge that it is something very rare and special.

Oh yes, life is special and rare. But I do not think that humans are any more special or rare than any other living thing, be it plant, insect or animals. We humans tend to elevate ourselves higher then we should, and I think we should be a bit more humble about our specialness. Is there greater meaning and significance? I do not know. Is there for the ant’s life? What about dust mites? Bacteria? Does something have to be alive to have greater meaning? I do not know, and I do not think we can know, not now with our limited abilities at hand.


playhavock

To say that our existence means anything beyond that, to me actually makes existence less then what it is. I will explain as I am able, we can find or apply meaning to a cog made in a factory, the cog is used in machine that is helpful - but that cog was made for that express machine only and that is its use - nothing more or less, in fact this cog cannot be used for anything else, and once worn out is meaningless- this I fear would be the case if in fact we are made by something for some reason - whatever that reason is, we must fill it, or fail to do so, and failing to do so would mean the maker was incompetent to make us to fill the task at hand, but even filling the task at hand is all we are good for, what room is there for growth or freedom of any sort in this case?
I fear, there could be none at all.
Rather, if we have no meaning objectively speaking, then we are in fact free to make up any meaning that we wish, better still, we have no boundary we cannot cross, no one to tell us we are not just a cog meant to do this task and no other. To hammer in this point, it has been said by many Christians that the point of existence is to serve God.

Dbohm

If the Christian God had intended us to be cogs He would not have allowed people choice and the ability of people to deny him and live however they liked. You have in fact forwarded a very good argument against Deism.

Well that’s one version of God down. Only thousands more to go... (humor)

However, the Christian God does not in fact allow people free will, not according to the Calvinists. Yet, here again we run into the problem of what version of God is correct as many Christians cannot seem to agree on this issue either. Some believe in free will, others do not.

playhavock

Well, I do not wish to, so my point is then moot, I've been made in error if this is the case - rather if the whole point of existence is nothing at all- then I can make it whatever I want. I am only truly free if there is nothing to tell me what my reason to be is, only truly free if I myself can decide what my "point" is.

Dbohm

And that is exactly the world we live in. You do have that choice and you can decide your “point�.

I think you have a very unique view of God and Free Will not necessarily shared by many Christians, I like it - I really do, but I still am unsure if that God is any more real than any other God.

Also I've been told my point is on my head. Or perhaps that’s two points, no wait those are my horns... (humor)

playhavock

So to the universe, it has no meaning objectively that I can fathom, it exists much like a rock does, mattering only when the rock lands on something that I value, or in this case, producing me - the universe matters to me because the universe produced me, it did not do so for any reason and did not even know I was going to be. I can decide to be grateful, towards the universe, and I might even stretch that out to think the universe has a personality that decided to make me, and that seems to be what those who believe in Gods have done - make the meaning of the universe to be that the universe made me - rather self-centered - but that too does not surprise me, we used to believe our world was the center of the universe. We found it was not.

Dbohm

The philosophical viewpoint you espouse here is a very old one. It is found in Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius. You may enjoy reading them. You might also be interested in knowing that Lucretius came up with the theory of evolution some 1900 years before Darwin.

Thank you, I'll add those books to my list to read, I think I was aware someone had thought of evolution before Darwin, I will look that up in more detail.
My word we really are doing badly at disagreeing here our readers will get bored if we continue to be so civil. (humor!)

playhavock

We often place humanity and ourselves on a pedestal, perhaps we should be more humble, I am but a speck of dust on a small blue dot, whatever I do or do not do will have no impact on the universe as a whole - and that’s okay, I can perhaps with others make a small ripple in the universe, only if we travel to the stars of course, but more than likely I will have little to no say in such matters, and again, I'm OKAY with that, because my meaning is my own, I make my own destiny, I write my own story, such as it is.

Dbohm

It may be worth considering at this point how much the decision you have made follows from your previous paragraphs where you stated you want to feel free and make your own “point� and how much the other way.

Point taken, is my conclusion because I want it to be or because it is? Logically I can only have freedom as a subjective invention of the brain if there is no one in charge of me, objectively I know that there are in fact many laws and people in essence in charge of me, on a larger scale of God, I do not know there is one or even if there is that it is in charge of me. I cannot conclude objectively with what I can observe there is any point other than my own subjective one. It seems logical to me, I might be wrong. Perhaps my point in life is no more valid or invalid as anyone else’s. Because I always strive to the truth, I am fine with whatever the case may be. I just have to be shown that it is in fact the case.


playhavock

This is true freedom. Sometimes the most disliked things are the truth, the disliked fact might be that there is no meaning objectively speaking. But, I'm fine with that being the possible case. I do not have to insist there is objective meaning.

Dbohm

It seems to me that true freedom is that both of us are able to believe different things even though we come from similar cultures, live on the same planet and the same universe.

We do seem free in that regard.

Dbohm

There is another kind of meaning that most of us become aware of also. That is the meaning or significance/purpose of our life. Much despair occurs when or if we believe that there is no meaning or significance to our lives.

playhavock

I disagree! I find that because I accept there is no objective meaning that I am free to make any subjective meaning I wish - that is, awesome! It is exhilarating to me, to be that free - to really say "Hey, I can do anything!" and it is true, (within reason) I can do anything, (within my limits and laws and means and so on)

However, I would like to point out that this is statement is not logically valid, so we cannot be sure its conclusion is warranted, it contains an appeal to emotion "Much despair occurs..." that might be the case for many, or even all humans (although I do not experience it myself) but that does not make it true or false. It might give us an emotional reason to pretend or make up significance for our lives, and as I said above, I do think that is the case.

Dbohm

I did say when or if. Not everyone has a problem with this but many, I would say by far the majority of people do when they are confronted with the reality of a pointless existence. Death is the logical and ultimate end of such an outlook. And since this outlook is part of popular culture today (it used to be held only by a wealthy intellectual minority) it’s no surprise to see the proliferation of vampire movies, CSI dramas etc.

My thrust is to show that not all humans have the despair you suggest, as you say it is not an all-encompassing statement, "many" humans feel this. It shows us merely that humans can find different meaning for their lives - I'm not sure if that shows there is any objective meaning to life. Perhaps again, your argument might not have to be that life has an objective value or meaning, only that the search itself means something, somehow. I do not think it does, but I am willing to be shown I am wrong, your current augment does not do this.

Christan Bible

‘For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.’ Eccl 8:9-10

I really did love the book of Ecclesiastes and Revelation. There is poetry and things I can dig for to agree with, and I suppose that will be true of other religious text books that I've yet to read, but agreement or not, I do not know if the rest is true, this part I think is true. I could of course be wrong.

playhavock

Quote:
The mortality and fragility of our own lives forces us in a way to look beyond.
Not always the case, plenty of people grow and die without ever "looking beyond" at all.

Dbohm

Agreed

I commend you for being so generous in agreeing with statements I've made when you do so. Thank you.

playhavock

Why are there such humans that do not or cannot "look beyond" - is it because a deity made them unable to see, or because their brains do not process information in the way that other brains process? The naturalistic view seems more sound then the supernatualistic.

Dbohm

I don’t see your point. A theistic universe is not a simple one with simple answers.

My question is very relevant, the "theistic" universe does not answer this question. The problem is twofold:

1: There is no way to determine what theistic universe is the actual universe due to God being untestable and unobservable, we have no way to know what, if any religion has it right.

2: Because of 1, we have no answers for any question about God(s) without referring to religion, and that is nothing more than a circular augment, we simply cannot know anything about God, and because of that, we can answer no questions without assuming that one religion is correct over others.

The next exchange is agreed to, so I am going to summarize it:

1. Nature does not produce needs.
2. Searching for meaning is not a need for all humans.
And finally, even if my opponent made his point he is now arguing against himself.
1A: Nature made the need of searching for meaning.
2A: Nature made humans with needs.
3A: Nature fills humans’ need of searching by making a thing to find (god)
So nature now makes god... I suppose that works for some theories of god, but not the one my opponent is after? Well perhaps he is, but he would have to show 1A to be true as well as 2A.

Dbohm

I think I’m going to agree with you here. I need to clarify my views on this.

Nothing more to add since we are in agreement here.

Dbohm

Our brokenness and need for redemption
What is striking about the human condition and almost universally acknowledged regardless of religious persuasion is the awareness of our brokenness. We just don’t even come up to our own standards.

playhavock

Again this seems more like an appeal to emotions then any sort of argument. Religion, more to the point the Christian Religion certainly does stress that humans are "broken" or incomplete without God, but this is nothing more than circular logic, if my opponent could show that every religion past and current all shared the common trait of alluding to brokenness then he would at least have a honest statement here, but I see no reason to think that every or all or even most religions that this is the case, so the "universally" statement is currently unjustified.

Dbohm

Ok I will grant you that my phrase ‘regardless of religious persuasion’ is too strong. I still maintain that this is the real human condition and I consider it fairly self-evident. But of course anyone can choose to argue about anything.

We can argue about anything and everything, what we must do in an informal logical augment such as this is provide the readers (in this case in lieu of an audience we have readers) and each other reasons why they should change their view on whatever their current view is. You cannot simply assert that (X) is self-evident, if it is actually self-evident then no one would ever have to say it was self-evident, we would all know it!

For example I need not quantify "I am alive" by saying it is self-evident, if I was not alive, I would be hard pressed to be making my points now
You must give me reasons to think that it is the case for all humans or most humans or groups of humans to have this feeling of brokenness & need for redemption, as it is currently you are presenting us with the statement that we are aware of this, and I reject this, I am not aware of this, other religions do not seem to include this in there teachings so might also be unaware of it, and so on. It is an appeal to emotion, or a possible one because it pleads to the audience to think of their emotional needs that might match this, or due to the power of suggestion WILL match it because, they have read they have this feeling, and so they will have it.

If you had case studies showing people going to therapists in droves with this feeling of brokenness and asking for some redemption, if you could show that non-believers in God are doing this more than believers are, then you would have a very good argument for this idea to be warranted, as of now, you present us with a mere assertion that this is the fact, and it is the case, without any justification, without any data, without any evidence. Your claim has failed its burden.

If you want to make the augment, do the research, find the data, if there is none then admit this and your augment here will have to be dropped, you will need a new one in its place, for now, without such data, without any support, we can't reach the conclusion you want us to.


Dbohm

I’m not making an appeal to emotion. Just turn the news on… on any day.

Appeal to novelty.

The appeal to novelty is a tough nut to crack, it appeals to novel things - popular things. The news media only reports "negative" stories - a car crash, murder, politics, and natural things like weather and traffic updates, very seldom does it report "positive" stories like how the town got together to pay for a new home for someone, or the volunteer of the year, and other good things that people do, I'd rather see a positive news network - but blood and guts and gore and sadness sell, and it sells very well. The newspaper is slightly better at reporting more good events, but again it caters to what will sell. So this is not a source to point to and say "ah see all the bad stuff on the news..." and conclude "therefor world is bad!" or whatever conclusion you want to draw from the appeal to the novelty of the news services.

The reason I say it is a tough nut to crack is because it is so appealing to us! Many people watch the news - or television in general. So it is hard for us to look past the novel to find out what the facts are, but this is what we must do. Yes, there is bad in the world, and much more then what is normally reported, and yes there is good in the world, much of it goes unreported. Some humans do good, others do nothing, and some do bad.

If you want me or anyone else to be able to conclude that world bad = we require God, then you must show how helpful said God is, how much more generous people are when they follow God, and so on. Depending on your conclusion you want to make of course.

Now, you might say, but playhavock I want to sight a news report about such and such - go ahead, that is not an appeal to novelty because it is being used to support and/or make a premise sightings are very useful in proving the points we wish to make.

playhavock

Appeal to emotion. Still, a strong one, I do not just shrug this off as a fallacy - we do feel this, and it is something to note - I have regrets - I cannot undo the past. I can learn from it and try to not make the same error again.
In fact, this is integrity, to try my best to do what is right, even if I should fail time and again. I do not however, feel unwhole due to this. I think again this pictures humans with a "Jesus" sized chunk in them missing that God made to fill with Jesus - this picture has been painted by Christians, my opponent does not paint this picture now, but I must reflect that this is in essence a "something is missing!" statement followed by "it must be god!" it is, at the end even though it is true - we do often make errors, and perhaps we do often feel alone or empty or unwhole - we do so either because we are "made" to feel that way by some deity - or because our brains work to process things in such a way that we feel these things at times.

Dbohm

You’re exactly right when you say I’m not painting a picture of a Jesus ‘size chunk’ missing in us. I’m not a Baptist but it does seem like a very crude caricature of their theology. In any case you are arguing against something I’m not even putting forward.

If I strawmaned you I'm going to smack myself with this kitten in the face.
Bleep. *smack* *meow!!* pour kitten. (humor)

Negative one point for me. (serous, I hate making logical fallacies when I should know better!)

Perhaps you can rephrase this augment, if you are not saying we are missing God, what are you saying?


playhavock

Perhaps true. However, I must ask why pathological narcissists exist, they will never feel the feelings as above, due to their own nature, so they will never feel the feelings you seem to suggest lead us to think there is a god. Did god allow these people into existence to miss the point of existence?

Dbohm

This is a whole other topic of debate. The theistic viewpoint does not entail simple or black and white answers to all questions. In some ways it’s much easier to take an agnostic viewpoint on these matters because you don’t need to inquire and question deeply. It’s enough to say ‘it is because it is’.

Well, no - it is never enough to say it is because it is. I think when we replace investigation with revelation that is what can happen, rather than find out why people are this way, the person might think it is just how God made them - and that is that. Rather the view point of science is to find out what is going on in there brain. If we humans can prevent this, change this, improve this - we will, in fact, you might argue it is our moral duty to do so.

Why is it that humans act to change those with such problems, and God does not? Why is God allowing the problem in? Changing DNA at birth in no way effects free will. So - what is the answer? My suggestion is twofold:

1: If there is a God it does not care and/or does not have the power to act and/or does not have morals.

2: Humans must rely not upon God(s) but on each other to better ourselves.

Dbohm

Why do we have this sense? Whether someone describes their morality as deontological or utilitarian we continue to fail even our own standards. And the more attention we pay on improving ourselves and the more introspection we do, the greater this awareness becomes. Regardless of all human effort we can never meet the standards. This leads us to ask if the disease has a cure? Is there a power outside ourselves that can make what is broken whole again? Religion and in particular the gospel say yes.

playhavock

A subjectively sad and tragic painting of the human affair, it would make a great entry for a Christian book, from a skeptical point of view, I find this a pour look at humanity, painting us humans as broken things who can never fill their own standards and must then turn to god to make them whole - in the end can only be answered by that the god itself is the one responsible for making them that way, that I view as self-serving.
If we set the standards high and fail to meet them, I do not think that means we should lower the standards, I do think it means we should help each other reach them.
Rather than turning to god or religion, we should turn to each other, we can know that humans might help - we cannot know what god will do to help us, further, I would press the point that Christians have not shown a very good record of being more moral the anyone else, so what good did there god do for them?

Dbohm

You seem to be agreeing with me on human brokenness now. You just disagree with me on how we should deal with it.

Not at all, I do not view humans as "broken" in the way you suggest. Some people are quite content with their lives, and others are very happy. There are some who are not, due to any number of reasons. Are some people "broken" as in physical and mental - you could use that word for it, I suppose, I would prefer a different term that was more applicable. Even if I was to use this word for it, I would not apply it to all humans, so your augment about it would still not apply.

playhavock

Beauty
If we take the view that life and the universe is totally random and that we have evolved on the basis of the strength of survival – why do we see beauty beyond merely the sexually desirous?
Same reason a butterfly is attracted to flowers. But, if we are to appeal to beauty, then is it not fair to also appeal to ugliness?

Dbohm

That would be for food right???

The butterfly; yes - food and avoidance of danger is the color system. Many (but not all) animals have color vision for avoidance of danger/poison and/or to find food, and for mating reasons as well. Humans being animals have the same color vision for similar reasons, mating, finding food, avoiding danger / poison and so on. Some humans are color blind, due to variation of species. The answer for your question is a natural one.

playhavock

Worse yet, the very thing my opponent tried to avoid - the false choice of evolution or creationism is right here! "If we take the view..." what other view is there, then the true one - at least regarding biological evolution.
However, rather than attack that, this seeks to say the whole universe is random, something my opponent cannot possibly know, and also misunderstands biological evolution as being from the "strength of survival" when we know that is not the only principle biological evolution functions upon, worse yet, the question seems to ask how can (X) be if these things are true, indicating two logical fallacies- argument of ignorance as well as augment from personal incredulity - and finally it begs to answer by saying we can only see beauty if evolution is false and/or the universe is not random.
The whole thrust of my opponent’s reach here is missed, if he wished to avoid drawing the line between reality of science and finding a reason for existence of God, he has failed to do so utterly in this paragraph.

Dbohm

I do express incredulity, and your answer hasn’t taken my incredulity away. Please provide me with an alternative understanding of beauty from an atheistic physicalist worldview. I would genuinely find it interesting.

I must hold off on this request to clarify a few things for you and perhaps a few readers.

Atheism has no world view. It is a description of a lack of belief in Gods.
I'm not personally aware of a physicalistic world view, or even if there is one.
And finally, I consider myself a skeptic, and that holds no world view either. It merely describes how I approach things and analyze things.

So, I cannot answer the question as it is written, but I can answer: "Explain beauty without referencing God(s)" and I did so above, we perceive beauty because we have evolved to do so, it is part of what enables us to thrive so well. Beauty is subjective, it is not objective at all, there is zero way to quantify when person (X) will see something as beauty and person (Y) will not. This is again due to evolution, difference of brain development, taste, ability to see color, environment, and so on.

Now, if you find yourself expressing incredulity you must improve yourself by research and study so that you will see if you can find the answer, and if not, you must accept that you cannot logically arrive at an answer and suspend judgment. I myself find many things that I have no idea how they work, and am in awe that they function at all, be they natural or mechanical in origin, yet a mystery is just that - if I do no research on the matter, I cannot say any conclusion on it. If I remark "I do not understand this computer..." that is fine, it is when I then conclude "...must be powered by fairies!" that I've made the error of personal incredulity not to mention appeal to my own ignorance.

If I opened the computer up and several pretty winged girls flew out, I might have a reason for that statement, (but I better get a recording device set up to document first what happens before I open it so I can have proof) also I'm going to set up a net to catch the fairies. This is critical thinking, if I want to assume the fairies are there, in spite of the logic, then I must gather evidence they are, set up a way to record and capture them, then open the computer to see what is inside. No fairies - my conclusion was unwarranted, but I've learned something.

Dbohm

Please provide your arguments on why beauty is subjective. Sure I grant strange aberrations in taste, and variations in taste, but I would be very surprised to hear someone ‘The Taj Mahal – Now that’s an ugly building!’ or ‘Mozart – What was he thinking when he composed Eine Kleine Nachtmusik!’

Personal incredulity again.

Variation in taste as you put it proves the subjective nature of beauty.
If you want to run a test, we will need several subjects - the more the better, we could do it with just two of us, looking at say 50 pictures and ranking them on beauty or not, we would find some agreement and some disagreement. You call that "variation in taste" but call it what it is - subjective in nature.

You might very well become surprised to find someone who utters the remarks you are looking for, they might exist or not, but you cannot point to anything and say that everyone will respond to that same thing as "beautiful" - that is the nature of art, it is the nature of the brain.

Without equivocation of what subjective means that is - if you are willing to drop the idea that there is a variation of taste, then I can produce an augment and/or we can run a test. I think we will soon find that people have different views of what is and is not beauty.

playhavock

As far as sunrises/sunsets this too can be countered by asking what good such events do for a blind person or even someone who is color blind, as that might dim their ability to be in awe of them, and finally what about those who see such events but are not moved to awe by them?
This just leaves out too many groups of people and asks a question that even if we could not answer by anything at all would not therefor mean that the awe (some) are moved to is due to anything other than how the brain functions, totally natural.

Dbohm

I used sunsets by way of example only.

Then you've committed the logical fallacy of false analogy.

Dbohm asked for more examples of the natural explanation of beauty, I've outlined the natural explanation above.

Dbohm finds the question of ugliness also intriguing and does not see why a parasite could not somehow indicate God.

He suggests I might be begging the question by asking questions that might not have answers. That is not the correct fallacy to point out (it would be appeal to ignorance) but the questions do have answers for the natural side, and it seems for Dbohm that beauty and ugly both can point to God. This is a better approach then I've seen before where one seems to ignore the bad and ugly and nasty of the world. I'm not sure however that either can point to any God.

playhavock

Please present peer-reviewed published papers that show that communication as defined by a scientific text book is occurring at either the atomic or cellular levels (or both) same for information.

Dbohm

I am a true layman here so I would not be able to provide you with such. What I can gather however is that physicists have conducted experiments that show subatomic matter mimicking communicative behavior. The authority I am chiefly using here, Gerald Schroeder, may be a theist but he is also a reputable nuclear physicist that is not making his physics up.
Also I’m not presenting it as proof of conscious communication, only as suggestive.

I would gather that Gerald Schroeder has one or more published (and pier reviewed) papers on the matter at hand. Find them and I'll read them. If you don’t know how to find them, I'll help you get started. (Pm me on this if you require help)

Dbohm

We have known since Einstein that mass equals energy. At the time and even today it is counterintuitive - how can an inert piece of matter be full of energy? But it is. And the atom bomb is testament to just how much energy.

playhavock

This is just how reality is. I think that invoking mystery even if there is a mystery. Things are whatever they are. Although I would think that if there is a deity to find we would find it with science.

Dbohm

I’m not intending to invoke mystery. The point I wanted to make was that our intuitive and sensory perception of the world can often be very different to reality. For instance to think that a solid object such as a rock is filled as far as we know by empty space and a very small proportion of stuff (i.e., nuclei and electrons) is counter-intuitive but nevertheless true based on scientific experiment.

Ah. Well, then I agree. We can't trust our intuitive and/or sensory perception to the degree that we can trust science. So, with that in mind, what does that say about the augment at hand?

If we cannot trust our internal senses that are telling us that God is out there, then we must turn to science, and if science cannot find a God out there, should we not conclude there is no God out there?

playhavock

What energy reading would God have? The so called "hiddenness" of God is one of those impossible to pass problems for the skeptics. We here are asking this question about if experience can show that God is real - we both agree that experience shows us reality, but it can also show us unreality as well - deciding the difference requires science, the very thing that God is said to be bound.

Dbohm

Does a fish know that water is wet?

Not as far as we know. But we are not fish.

Turning from fish to a mammal - we are trying to teach Dolphins to speak and/or understand us, we did it with Koko - so again we are doing something - reaching out to a lesser life form then us to get it to our vantage point if we can, sometimes this takes years of effort, and it seems very much that God if it exists, is not doing the same for us.

Dbohm

If as the bible says ‘in him we live breathe and have our being’, it’s going to be hard to put God underneath a microscope and recognize Him. I don’t know whether that means it’s impossible but I do think it’s a different problem than watching penicillin grow.

But God is projected to be an intelligent agent who has its own will. It can show us it exists. If it did it would clarify the matter for all of us. As it has not bothered to do this, I cannot believe it exists.

Dbohm

Today advances in science are revealing how much ‘code’ and information processing is occurring at the microbiological and even sub-atomic level.

playhavock

I often see the misunderstanding of "code" and the idea that this is information - it is but it is not - the issue might be in our limit of language - the zero and one of binary is code, and turns on or off circuits in a computer allowing more complex things to occur.
The argument is that because D.N.A. is like computer code - and we know computer code is made by a mind... there for the D.N.A. must be made by a mind - but it is nothing more than the watch maker argument. Simply because we see a similarity does not mean there is one, and moreover, without any quantifiable mind that we can point to for D.N.A. we can only know what can be known, in this case that it is purely natural, it is not designed as evolution designs nothing, it works because it is the configuration that held most stable and worked most often.

Dbohm

I am not making a watchmaker argument at all here.

All right, all you must do is rebuttal the fallacy.

Dbohm

Did you read my post?

That is not how you rebuttal. Of course I'm reading your posts, and analyzing them for logic, content, proof, data, questions, and so on. This is the second time you have asked such a question, in informal (and formal) debate this question should never be raised, it belongs in eristic dialog only.

Dbohm

My point was that science is showing how much communication is going at the micro-biological level. For instance cells have been shown to be constantly sending signals to each other in very intelligent ways. See: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/ ... sidestory/
The behavior of cells is intelligent. And it looks very much like information is being passed from one cell to another via signals. It may also be suggestive of consciousness. But because we cannot enter someone or something else’s consciousness we cannot say for sure that therefore consciousness exists here. All I can make is inferences. We look at behavior. We do this for other human beings and conclude that they too have consciousness. Now neither I nor anyone else can say that there is consciousness in cells but their behavior is certainly suggestive. It is also suggestive that the carrying of ‘information’ is a salient feature of life at all levels.

That’s a far better rebuttal! Looking at the resource, I do not see it suggested that this is intelligence anywhere in that article. Although they are using the word communication.

They may, or may not be intending for us to extrapolate intelligence - and without any comment on them that this does or does not show intelligence, we cannot say what they meant to say.

If you can find more on this to show that this is intelligence and/or suggests intelligence and said info is from a peer reviewed published scientific paper - then I will agree based on that information that you are correct. So - you got me on the communication part, that is what they are saying, do they mean what we mean by it - that I do not know. But, even if I assume they do mean the same, I still do not see any reference to intelligence in that article.

However let us take this further. Let us say that you do find what I'm asking for. I would then conclude there is intelligence in cells... and that’s it. I would not be able to go further without more data.

Dbohm

Ok agreed. I’m relying heavily on other people’s study and research here as I’m much more comfortable in historical and philosophical thought.

Nothing wrong per say in relying upon others works and ideas and research, as long as you stretch yourself to do your own research come up with new ideas and so on, it is merely a matter of when it is and when it is not a fallacy.

In my previous rebuttal I suggest that Gerald Schroeder might be using a God of the gaps argument.

Dbohm

I fail to see how Schroeder is using a ‘God of the Gaps’ argument here. What he is pointing out is that contrary to a materialist or for that matter dualist viewpoint there need not exist a hard line between the ‘natural’ and the ‘supernatural’. And what science might call ‘information’, religion has historically referred to this ‘information’ as ‘spiritual’.

Hard or soft line - I have no idea what the case might be. This might be a case of
the God of the margins - this is in essence the idea where we are moving God further and further back with the more we understand about things, to the point the cosmological ideas that we are forwarding have little room for God to do anything in, and so the margin that God could exist gets smaller and smaller. Or this could be a case of equivocation, where Schroder is changing what spiritual means or saying that it "always" meant information. Similarly to how the Catholic church responded to the "Big bang" in essence saying "Ah that’s what we have said all along!"

However neither of these might be the case, if Schroder is saying the line is not what it was, I must ask how he knows this, where the data is, if the "spiritual" is nothing more than information then why call it spiritual, where and what is supernatural, what is the test, what can we learn about it? The problem is in the end, that if it is nothing more than information, we can test that and we can study it, and the mysticism that spiritually has projected fades away, well- not a problem for the skeptic, but perhaps a problem for the theist. If one is assuming that (X) God must be true, and the evidence shows that information is in fact, natural and requires not the (X) God, will the theist leave that God idea behind?

The facts are what I will follow, wherever they might lead. The issue with those who believe there is a God is often they will start with the conclusion (God exists) and work backwards to prove it, rather than assuming nothing and seeing where the information and data will lead us to conclude.

playhavock

The problem with quoting the bible, as I have said in other debates is that you must show that your idea of how this verse should be viewed is the right one. There is no way that I know of that you can do this, but I welcome you to try.

Dbohm

Sorry I’m not sure what you are asking me to do here.

If you want to use a Christian Bible verse as a reference for your argument, you
must first show it is true outside of the bible, if you cannot do this, or if you are sighting it as a Christian reference to explain something you must show that the verse in question is meant to be interpreted the way you suggest rather than the many other ways that Christians might suggest it could be interpreted as.

You could do this by showing that all or at least the majority of Christians view it in this way by sighting creeds, doctrines, scholars and history of the faith in general to show that view (A) is the correct way to interpret scripture (B), I've personally never seen this done and I do not think it can be due to the number of versions of Christian teachings on almost every single bible verse there is, but it might be possible to do it, I have no idea.

The point in asking for this herculean task is that quoting Holy Scripture from any source is suspect - I have no reason to think it is true or that it is being used in the correct way. I must have reasons to agree that it is true and it is being used in the right way before the next premises can be addressed.

playhavock

I'm not sure if freewill is a thing. Although there are many actions I can take that are under my control, there are many more actions I take that are not under my control. This seems then to be a mix of freewill and not-freewill.

Dbohm

Agreed.

Does this agreement infringe upon your premise? If free will is only partial - might that make your argument weaker than it was - currently it does not seem to rest upon "because free will = God" but you seem to be suggesting - and I might be wrong, that free will indicates something beyond the natural ability of the brain? You might want to reconstruct your augment with the idea in mind that freewill and non-freewill are intertwined, or at least make it that freewill/non-freewill is not an issue for your argument at all.

In reference to consciousness being less of a mystery Dbohm would like some evidence. I resist the urge to use humor and suggest he simply have faith I am correct, and will instead provide a few resources that suggest we are learning and understanding consciousness:

References:

Here we see the first look at what is happening to conscious as one slips into anesthesia:
http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/15/r ... nesthesia/

We can see here a large volume of information on consciousness:
http://consc.net/online/8

Now, there is just too much information above to sight any one topic, my point here is we know more now than we did in the past, this is of course, true for most subjects that we study actively, we will always find more about them then we knew before.

It is a logical fallacy to say that even if (X) is a mystery that (X) then is solved by (Y) since that means in essence, it is not a mystery.

Dbohm

The whole point about consciousness and the point I’ve been making is not that consciousness can be proven, because no one can directly experience or observe someone else’s consciousness. We can only observe behavior and make inferences. And some behavior seems very suggestive of consciousness.

I think I understand where you are coming from on this matter.

(Please forgive my crude drawing!)

Figure 1:



The observer here can see the blips of light using a machine of the person thinking, but cannot directly observe the thoughts themselves. We can however record the thoughts the person is thinking or have them think of only certain things. Areas of the brain can be mapped, to a point.

One day we might be able to use the data to "see' the thoughts of people, but that day is not today. However, you are saying that the above method can be or should be applied to other things and we should infer consciousness if we similar things.

However, this simply is not how science works. We observe a Venus flytrap close upon a fly, we do not then assume the Venus flytrap is doing so from any consciousness.

This comparing of one like thing to another like thing is referred to in logic as association and causation, just because something is similar does not mean the cause is also similar, and vice versa - if a true connection is there, we must be shown it is there with data and research on the matter. We cannot decide the matter with logic, for we do not know the premises are true as yet, thus the conclusion we might draw are unwarranted. Logic has its limit, and it is thus; it can only function to get to a result if you have the correct information.


playhavock

Worse yet, he takes quantum mechanics and spins it into something it is not - makes it pseudo-science to get to an unwarned conclusion, for shame.

Dbohm

I’m not at all saying that QM proves there is a God, but it sure does leave the door wide open.

This seems very much an appeal to ignorance, that QM somehow is leaving the door wide open for God - but how, is it due to our lack of knowledge about QM, is it something that QM is showing us? What is it about QM that is "leaving the door open" for God? Since QM is a relatively new field and much is still not understood - you would have to give very good research on the matter to show that it is even allowing a possibility of God without committing the appeal to ignorance fallacy.

There is not yet any definitive interpretation of QM experiments including the double split experiment.

This shows electrons act like waves and act like particles. Any other mysteriousness invoked is often done in ignorance of the matter. Even if there is no interpretation this means only we do not yet understand it, nothing more or less.

Dbohm

More recently Hawking and others have argued for the existence of multiverses but so far this is an unproven theory.

M-theory is one of many cosmological theorems being proposed. No idea what one will win out in the end.

Dbohm

QM certainly brings into question a deterministic view of the universe and introduces some interesting problems of observer interference.
And in the Schroeder quote I provided in my opening statement, he does point out the interesting phenomenon of particles in the double slit experiment ‘seeming’ to know whether there are two slits or only one slit open and behaving accordingly even though there is no reason for conditions at one slit to affect conditions at the other slit.

Yes, again plenty of new agers and others have latched onto QM as some mystical thing when it is not, we do not understand it - we cannot make these statements that things "know" anything! It is not logical, it is not science to do so!

Dbohm

You might argue then that this is argument ad ignorantum. Well, if I were to say that this therefore proves consciousness in this instance, it would be. But I’m not saying it proves only that it is suggestive.

This is a probabilistic argument:
1: These particles seem to behave as if they have conscious behavior.
C: Therefor, it is possible that they have consciousness

If that is the augment you are using - and I'm not sure it is - then premise one depends upon if the inference is warranted, or not. Probabilistic arguments are often seen as "weaker" in informal logic because they use words like "seem" or "may" or other words that indicate the argument is not deductive in nature, I'm fine with any augment be it probabilistic or otherwise if I can be sure about the premises being warranted or valid, and for 1 above, I'm just not convinced it is with what little data there is on the matter. One scientist might suggest this, but that is not enough, more so if the scientist has not published a paper that has been reviewed by piers to make it through the rigors of that process.

Dbohm

The most common arguments I seem to encounter from Atheists is that given enough time no room will be left for a theist viewpoint and often cite evolution and the big bang as examples.

This is known as the God of the margins augment.

Dbohm

Some go so far as to bring up theories such as flat earth and geocentrism which have nothing to do with proofs for Theism.

Proofs for a certain TYPE of Theism: Creationism from Christian evangels.

Dbohm

Despite these attacks, an allegorical or more than just literal reading of genesis has been strongly present in Talmudic as well as early Christian writings. And before the evidence for the Big Bang became overwhelming, prominent atheists theorized an eternal universe since this was thought as contrary to a theistic viewpoint as possible. Today the big bang theory is being used by some atheist propagandists as proof against Theism . It truly shows how subjective metaphysical interpretations of scientific data can be.

The infinite / eternal universe still is a counter for many theistic arguments.

It just depends on what augments you are looking at or for. There are some very bad anti-God arguments and some very good ones. On the other side, I've yet to find a logically formatted augment for any deity/God where all the premises are known to be true. Most try for the deductive approach, and fail, and a few use other tactics. If you want to find better arguments against a deity, I can suggest reading though "Critics of God" if you are looking for logical augments (premise a, b, c) I can find some online for you.

As for what science is saying - it is not saying there is a God, and it is not saying there is no God, in fact, because we do not even know what a God is - it can say nothing on the matter, there is nothing for it to study, and some insist that God cannot be studied or tested or proven. Revelation of God by God for many is how they "know&

[dbohm]

Instead of appealing directly to revelation and mystical experience, I have tried to appeal to ordinary experiences that are suggestive of God. I hold that consciousness, our ability to comprehend the universe, ascertain truth and beauty/ugliness and our moral discernment that allows us to see our very own shortcomings are all suggestive of the divine. Nevertheless as these are suggestive only and cannot be proven as evidence of God, it can be argued against or avoided completely as Playhavock has done.

There seems to be an un-crossable divide between the two views. The believer can hear God, does see miracles and sees the evidence of God’s presence in their lives. The non-believer does not personally see these things and if they do come across a ‘miracle’, can easily explain it away or leave it simply unexplained. Rarely have I heard unbelievers report any strong mystical experiences that point to any direct revelation but I have come across a few cases. Yet even believers who have no strong ‘mystical’ experiences still have faith and with this faith look at their life and existence as evidence of the presence of God. They are predisposed to see God’s workings. The unbeliever on the other hand is predisposed to dismiss miracles, explain away things as coincidences and can readily call on other explanations to account for things that are unexplainable or alternatively leave them simply unexplained. Our presuppositions carry great weight when we judge our own experience; even more so when we judge other people’s. Often some very great crisis or deep and thorough examination is required to change them.

If the subject of religion were in the sphere of empirical proofs, it would probably have been solved a long time ago. Yet it is has not been proven either way. It is not like tracking the orbit of the moon or watching a chemical reaction. Playhavock contends that all religious experience is in the brain only. Such a claim can neither be proven right or wrong. He might be right. If he is right, all religious experiences, including those of Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Paul, Mohammed, Buddha, von Bingen, Assisi, not to mention many ordinary unnamed religious followers, can either be classed as delusions, the result of extreme mental or physical stress, mental illness or purposeful deceptions. If he is wrong, there is a great deal of reality that lies beyond the scope of Playhavock’s inquiry.

Indeed the main thesis of Playhavock is that because religious experiences cannot be universally experienced in the same way as an apple might, that it is therefore reasonable to assume that it has no basis in reality only in the brain. Yet if we take this as the sole criterion of reality, it means that many things that no one has seen to exist outside of our brains must have no reality. Consciousness, truth, morality, beauty, and the comprehensibility of the universe are experienced internally but are not therefore outside the realm of reality. The fact that not all people have religious experiences is not reason in itself to believe all such experiences lie outside of reality. This fact also doesn’t stump religion as direct experiences of God are not considered usual for every human being.

So what we are left to consider is what can be considered valid experience. Playhavock proposes that only experiences that can be relied on are those experiences that can be confirmed by others. And I am supposing it is for this reason, Playhavock believes science is so valuable.

In the interest of bringing the debate to a close, I won’t laboriously rebut each and every one of Playhavock’s points. Instead I’ve chosen to respond to Playhavock by first setting out the limits of scientific inquiry and some metaphysical assumptions about scientific investigation. A very strong materialistic atheism often contends that we can readily judge religious experience as bogus and that nothing lies outside the inquiry of empirical science. I will then respond to Playhavock by questioning how much we can know about the truth of other people’s experiences particularly in regard to religious experiences. I intend to show that only blindness will push that all religious experience can be proven wrong and that although Science is valuable and necessary, it has limits to it’s fields of inquiry. And those limits are not bars to knowledge just bars to empirical methodologies.



The limits of scientific knowledge

“We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched� Ludwig Wittgenstein

Science can teach us how to build a house, but science does not teach us how best to live in it. Once we move from the ‘how to’ or causal connections discovered by scientific investigation to the ‘should’ and ‘ought’ we are no longer doing science. What one ought to do is not repeatable or testable in the same way that by dropping a rock we can observe the laws of gravity. Should I drop this rock on this person’s head is a different question to - what forces etc make the rock fall downwards and at what speed. It is entirely outside the scope of science. If your ethics are utilitarian, you might say that morality is scientific if we are able to measure the amount and quality of happiness produced by an action. But when we decide that utilitarianism is the proper measure of morality and that happiness is the goal of morality, we are making a claim about which science strictly speaking has nothing to say.

Why consciousness, morality, meaning, beauty/ugliness and the confidence in our ability to reason and comprehend the world exist are not things explainable by science either. Yet these things are a vital and crucial part of our everyday existence. I argued in my former posts that these are pointers to God. Playhavock either feels that there is no need to explain them at all, or says that they have natural or evolutionary explanations without mentioning exactly what these explanations are. Despite the fact that the theory of evolution does not have a coherent or satisfactory way of explaining how they came in existence, a natural explanation goes nowhere on shedding light as to why and we certainly would have no confidence on our reasoning or right perception of reality if we believe evolution is a random and accidental process.

At one point when I mentioned that the existence of consciousness is still a mystery, Playhavock responded by providing links to a website showing a study that when a patient is given anesthetic, neuron activity can be seen to cease in different parts of the brain in sequence. Another link was simply a website with lots of papers on studies of consciousness and brain states. Yet all of this is beside the point, no one has solved the hard problem of consciousness. A very small handful of philosophers take the extreme position of eliminativism. Dennett in his book ‘Consciousness Explained’, doesn’t so much explain as explain away consciousness. His approach to the question is to deny that consciousness really exists at all, it is basically an illusion caused by a process he calls heterophenomenology. It is an extreme position that fails to convince the majority of philosophers of mind.

In short when we consider the subjects of consciousness, morality, meaning, beauty/ugliness, and trustworthiness of our reason, we are not doing science but philosophy. Science itself regardless of what some scientists think, is not exempt from philosophy. For questions relating to what science actually discovers, what is the best scientific method and why, and how reliable our observations and findings are – these are philosophical in nature and the conclusions one arrives at are not arrived at using any acceptable scientific method.

Let’s move from these experiences to what science can say about God.

If we accept that current scientific methodologies are silent on the question of God, we must ask why

Is it because

1. God does not exist so cannot be observed

2.Because science uses methods that are used for observable and repeatable occurrences in the natural world, an unseen, all-powerful, omnipresent God cannot be studied by science, especially one that can choose to be seen or not seen.

3.Science is yet to discover God.

If we conclude that God does not exist because of science

This may be because

1.Since science has made so much progress already, it’s safe to assume God does not exist.

2.Only what is seen is real. Science deals with the seen and observable. Therefore a metaphysical claim based on physicalism does not allow for the possibility of an unseen being.

3. Anything that cannot be studied using scientific methodologies is unknowable. So the question is a moot point. There is no point arguing or trying to establish God’s existence.

The first statement more often than not betrays ignorance of both theology and science. The second statements are forms of logical positivism.

Science deals with what’s observable, repeatable and testable. So if something is not observable, testable and repeatable does that therefore mean it’s non-existent because it’s outside the scope of science. If this is a false statement, then there are elements of reality not describable by science.

If God can only be known by personal experience, all that is necessary then is to discount the reality of personal experience that cannot be studied by science.

So what personal experiences are not at the same time observable, repeatable and testable? I would include the following, most of which I have already mentioned.

Moral truth
Historical facts
Religious experiences
Qualia
Consciousness and the existence of mind
Meaning
Beauty/Ugliness
Reliability of our reason
The comprehensibility of the universe

So not just God but knowledge and experience of all these things need to be discounted.

But what exactly is the reality that science studies? What exactly is the connection between cause and effect?

There is a fundamental disjoint between popular understandings of science and the metaphysics that is widely accepted after Hume. Most people say that science deals with facts. And facts are about reality. But how firm really is our grasp on facts?
Hume wished to show that the connection between cause and effect, i.e. a fact, could not be reducible to the objects of causation itself but only by inference from experience. If we threw a brick towards a window for all we know it could turn into a bouquet of flowers on impact. But only from custom we induce that the brick will smash the window. The juxtaposition of events does not imply there is any connection. We must use inductive reasoning from repeatable observations to prove or disprove causal relations. The breakthrough and paradigm shifts in Science occur when a new hypothesis through inductive reasoning provides a better explanation of causal relationships. This inductive reasoning, Hume contends is an irreducible part of thinking and we have no certainty of its veracity. It is really for Hume a predictive power upon which we cannot depend upon as truth of reality. The distinction Hume makes between belief and fiction is the force, steadiness, intensity, and involuntary nature of an experience. For instance, an enchanted castle we can imagine in the mind but it can easily be discarded or conjured up in the will. However if we stand in front of the Tower of London we cannot wish the sight away. If we kick it hard, our leg hurts etc. There follows that there can be times when the difference is not so strong.

Reality is a moot point for Hume. Our trust then in science rests on our trust in our inductive reasoning. And although experience demonstrates the usefulness and practicality of our inductive reasoning – we cannot live day by day without out it - it doesn’t give us an assurance of reality. If we introduce Darwin’s theory of evolution we have even less grounds for that assurance.

In contrast to Hume’s metaphysics is the Aristotelian four causes

1. Material
2. Formal
3. Efficient
4. Final

Without going into great depth, unlike Hume, Aristotle doesn’t separate cause and effect into a distinct temporal sequence. Effects are found in the object itself. And objects themselves are descriptive of reality. For instance the brick’s material cause is fired clay – allowing it to have a hard rectangular shape or form – its effect is to break brittle objects such as glass and resist the elements– it’s purpose can be for forming walls or as a hard projectile etc. Aristotelian metaphysics gives us confidence that when we study nature we are in fact studying reality. However, Playhavock needs be aware that if he agrees with Aristotelian metaphysics and distrusts Hume’s he will end up conceding in the existence of God, the prime mover, as Aristotle did. Aquinas has rendered it a logical necessity to conclude in God if we accept the Aristotelian model (yes, once premises are accepted, it is possible to prove things in philosophy). As this is a sidetrack – for this proof the reader can read Aquinas or a good commentary on Aquinas such as Edward Feser’s ‘Aquinas, A Beginner’s Guide.’

To a modern reader there is a great irony in all of this. If we doubt we can know reality by engaging in science, we have no logical basis to assume the existence of God. On the other hand if we are sure we are studying and comprehending reality when we do science, God becomes a logical necessity.
To conclude then, there are experiences that fall outside science’s inquiry but we don’t have reason then to believe that those experiences do not belong to reality. Further scientific ‘facts’ are not as factual as we necessarily assume. Our acceptance of science’s facts is based as much on our metaphysics as the investigative rigor and testing by which they are arrived at.

Religious Experiences

One of the points I made earlier was that although like consciousness, morality, meaning, and beauty/uglinesss, religious experience cannot be understood by science alone, it is unlike them in that those other experiences are in some way or form experienced by just about everyone. Revelations, visions and religious communion are not commonly experienced. Playhavock discounts it not just for that reason but also that he believes that such experiences come if not from liars but the mentally ill. A simple reply to such a statement is that we don’t know if the conditions of the epileptic or the schizophrenic do not make them more receptive to realities that our ordinary perceptions are not aware of. Another point Playhavock makes is that if we can trust revelation, it should be able to make predictions that we could not make otherwise. In answer to that, excluding Messianic prophecy that he has stated in other places is too vague, there are in fact exact prophecies to events already occurred in the Old Testament. Often when these prophecies occur the skeptic says the scriptures were doctored. Yet I personally know Christians that have made exact prophecies many years in advance such as the big earthquake in Christchurch New Zealand and they did happen. But Playhavock is in error if he thinks that God can be called up at will to provide proof of His existence or supply lacking information.

All this debate seems to disregard the most critical part of Religious experiences – namely communication. And communication involves a relationship. If a wife wished to prove to someone that she was married, she could ask her husband to tell that person he is her husband. But the husband may refuse. The wife cannot force his action. Is that reason enough to assume she is not married?
I purposely did not center my side of the debate on religious or mystical experience, because like I said in my opening post, they have only power to convince those who have them. They have no force on others. I do not even wish in such a debate to disclose any that I have had as they are so prone to misunderstanding and ridicule by those who have not experienced them.
There is a less striking but no less powerful experience of God that the believer can have. When incredible provision and mercy is shown to us, the believer can see God’s providence. An account of this is written in Genesis when Jacob returns to the land of Canaan afraid of his brother Esau’s reception. When Esau receives him favorably Jacob said to him, ‘For to see your face is like seeing the face of God, now that you have received me favorably.’Gen33.10. Even for the more dramatic moments of God’s presence in the Biblical account such as Moses and the burning bush, I wonder how much the focus of the believer was required to see God. I sometimes imagine that Moses could have walked passed many burning bushes, and then one day it caught his sight and captured his curiosity.

Of course this leads to the start of this post. The believer and the non-believer make different presuppositions on their experience and this greatly affects their conclusions.

In conclusion, the atheist struggles to account for the existence of consciousness, conscience, reliability of our understanding, the comprehensible nature of the universe, meaning and beauty/ugliness. It is no less mysterious for the theist. And there is much we can learn and study about these experiences. But their existence makes perfect sense if God does in fact exist.

[playhavock]

It seems we must draw to a close. We have traveled far readers.
Let me take you back to my opening:
1: Some experiences are of real things, some are of unreal things (dreams, inventions)
2: The natural world can be verified and agreed upon by others.
3: The "supernatural" world cannot be verified or agreed upon by others.
Dbohm agreed that one, two and three are all true.
The only rebuttals offered are full of logical fallacies.
Here they are summarized:

Those other things that we can think about would become delusions: Consequential Argumentation.

Dbohm makes an appeal to philosophy writers: appeal to authority.

Dbohm invokes mysteries about consciousness, we do not know much about it, and this somehow leads to the possibility of God: Appeal to ignorance.

Dbohm suggests that science has limits and that these limits are reasons to think that it is not enough for deciding the matter of God, but without the measurement system of science we are left with the issue that our brain sometimes cannot be trusted, something Dbohm never dismissed as a true statement, thus any limits in science are simply irrelevant, we might one day surpass them, or we might have mystery - Dbohm suggested that because of the unknown this somehow allows for the possibility of God: Appeal to ignorance.

Dbohm creates a strawman and tu quoque by saying that atheists presume no God.

Dbohm invokes religious experience that cannot be empirically verified to even have occurred as a reason for a possibility that some God might exist, I submit the reason for religious experience is the brain, something that Dbohm never seemed to be able to explain away as a possibly with logic, but rather appeals to a whole host of ideas he thinks would also have to be discounted as real: Consequential Argumentation.

Dbohm says he has known Christians to make accurate predictions of the future that came totally true. Without all knowledge of all predictions that anyone made, we cannot see how many misses they have: Sharp shooter fallacy.

Dbohm then adds that God would not allow itself to be known, so that any test we might want to produce to see if the person can in fact see the future is impossible, God is made untestable and unverifiable again: Moving the goal post fallacy.

Dbohm suggests that atheists, naturalists, skeptics etc. must "struggle" with concepts like consciousness, conscience, reliability of our understanding, the comprehensible nature of the universe, meaning and beauty/ugliness - but this is not true, we can and do use science to understand better all of these things on various levels - and even if it was the case that we did not understand these things that would still not allow us to conclude God: Ad hoc reasoning.

With all the logical fallacies invoked we must remain at a skeptical stance about

Dbohm's conclusion - that any experience allows even a possibility of God is not justified by the premises because they are logically flawed.

Dbohm never refuted my three premises - and if all three are true, then we cannot point to the experience that some have of God and conclude that it is real beyond their brain.

We must be skeptical of what this experience means, and the fact that there is a natural explanation that can be known to be true, forces us to conclude with the evidence we have that it is a product of the brain, and we should not be surprised that this is so, it is part of how our brains work to try to sort information and create answers - sometimes this leads to invention and discovery, but sometimes this allows believers to replace investigation with revelation.

Does our experience of a God let us think that there is one out there - I must conclude that we should remain skeptical of this, unsure, this leads to a question mark, not atheist and not agnostic, but skeptical about the conclusion, this might be emotionally unsatisfying for some, but it is the only logical stance to take.
Due to this, our stance must be to remain skeptical about the idea that God is real outside of the brain.