Let's pretend...

Argue for and against Christianity

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Tcg
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Let's pretend...

Post #1

Post by Tcg »

.

...that any of the arguments for god are valid. We have to pretend of course because they are horrible. But, if one established that a god created us, them, the universe and whatever else, what reason would there be to conclude that creator is still around?

As I like to present for example, maybe god was given a chemistry set for Christmas one year and he accidentally blew himself up. Then his bits and pieces and those of the chemistry set become the universe. There'd be no more god any more.


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Re: Let's pretend...

Post #61

Post by Athetotheist »

TRANSPONDER wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 12:23 pm
Athetotheist wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 11:37 am [Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #57
Well, yes, and nobody knows what and it's a matter for Cosmologists or physicists and does not belong here unless there is a religious aspect involved in the discussion which our supposed ex -atheist pal seems to be protesting he is not arguing at all. I sniff a monumental attempt at evasive misdirection here.
Didn't your mother ever tell you that it's impolite to talk about others in front of them like they aren't there?

I admit to having reasons from personal observation for suspecting consciousness in the universe, reasons which I don't expect to convince others and which I'm not relying on here. Also, I don't claim to know the full nature of the principle to which I refer.

At the same time, such a principle is hardly any more vague than a Nothing which can "nevertheless" create something. If nothing can "nevertheless" be all-creative, why couldn't an underlying principle just as easily "nevertheless" be conscious? That should be satisfactory to you, since you have no problem with the "counter-intuitive".
I rarely listened to her as she talked nonsense as well. And your persistent denialism makes it wearying to address you personally so I'm rather addressing the wider audience and finally, Sue me. And I note that you ignored the pertinent question of whether you do or don't credit intelligence to this amorphous principle of yours, so I suggest you treat my posts with that modicum of respect before you start pointing the accusing finger at me.

You continue to insult my intelligence by persistently overlooking a pretty clear case - yes, nobody knows one way or the other and I have never presented the something from nothing case as anything more than a half hypothetical way out of the impasse of turtles all the way down, which again with small respect, you insisted was the problem with my suggestion rather than a way out of it.

Even without the turtle -stack of a First cause causing a first cause, or the evasive evasion of an origin with a vague underlying principle which is eternal, endlessly created or appeared out of nothing and which problem appears unaddressed by you. You jedi- wave a totally vague 'underlying principle' and think you have made a case? I don't treat our readership as though I expect them to be gullible dodos.

Your glass house is in in shards, chum, and I don't see that you were any better off for me talking to you rather than everybody. Your case still looked like a dogs' dinner.
You're getting awfully hot under the collar.

Before you go passing judgement on how I "think (I) have made a case", you should look back at my previous posts where you'll see that I've used such terms as "postulating" and "suspecting" to refer to my position, which I've endeavored to back up with logical arguments.
And I note that you ignored the pertinent question of whether you do or don't credit intelligence to this amorphous principle of yours
I hardly think this is a fair assessment after I said in my last post,
I admit to having reasons from personal observation for suspecting consciousness in the universe
(that's where I used the term "suspecting").

Frankly, I think I've treated your position considerably better than you've treated mine. I haven't referred to yours as a "jedi-wave" or "a monumental attempt at evasive misdirection". I haven't compared it to "a dog's dinner". I called it a fallacy of composition at one point, and I think that's the strongest language I've used. The phenomenon I'm proposing is undetected (perhaps undetectable) and must therefore be sought by rational----rather than empirical----means, which adds a unique challenge to its defense, and through it all I've tried to keep a cool head (trust me----there were a couple of things I wanted to say and didn't).

At least give me credit for that.

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Re: Let's pretend...

Post #62

Post by JoeyKnothead »

JoeyKnothead wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 10:59 pm
Athetotheist wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 8:57 pm
JoeyKnothead wrote: Not knowing, so not proposing how things came about, I got me no turtle in the race.

I've merely pointed out that what you propose are problems in the arguments of others are the exact same flaws in your own argument.
They're actually not, because I'm coming at it a bit differently. TRANSPONDER assumed that I was proposing a god made of energy, like the universe. I pointed out that I'm actually postulating a principle underlying the existence of what we can detect.
And that principle is?

And what are we detecting? (I don't wanna assume, so ask for clarity)
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Re: Let's pretend...

Post #63

Post by Athetotheist »

JoeyKnothead wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 8:32 pm
JoeyKnothead wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 10:59 pm
Athetotheist wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 8:57 pm
JoeyKnothead wrote: Not knowing, so not proposing how things came about, I got me no turtle in the race.

I've merely pointed out that what you propose are problems in the arguments of others are the exact same flaws in your own argument.
They're actually not, because I'm coming at it a bit differently. TRANSPONDER assumed that I was proposing a god made of energy, like the universe. I pointed out that I'm actually postulating a principle underlying the existence of what we can detect.
And that principle is?

And what are we detecting? (I don't wanna assume, so ask for clarity)
Hello, is this thing on?
As I said earlier,
I don't claim to know the full nature of the principle to which I refer.
I've been trying to argue for its existence, not to speculate indepth on its nature.

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Re: Let's pretend...

Post #64

Post by JoeyKnothead »

Pre-edited for clarity...
Athetotheist wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 9:33 pm I don't claim to know the full nature of the principle to which I refer. I've been trying to argue for its existence, not to speculate indepth on its nature.
What do you know of the nature of this principle underlying the existence of what we can detect?

And what is it we're detecting? The universe? Life? Consciousness? Serious question so I know what we're fussing on.

Let me offer some notions so you know I enjoy a serious discussion, even if I goof around. I don't try to play "gotcha", or try to mischaracterize what folks have to allow. As you've mentioned you're doing some reasoned speculating, and not claiming absolute Truth(tm), I'd like to see if we can find some small t truth in your proposal.

Not to butter your biscuits, but I see you're undoubtedly intelligent, so I'm just trying to siphon me some of it off of ya :wave:
I might be Teddy Roosevelt, but I ain't.
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Re: Let's pretend...

Post #65

Post by TRANSPONDER »

Athetotheist wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 6:54 pm
TRANSPONDER wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 12:23 pm
Athetotheist wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 11:37 am [Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #57
Well, yes, and nobody knows what and it's a matter for Cosmologists or physicists and does not belong here unless there is a religious aspect involved in the discussion which our supposed ex -atheist pal seems to be protesting he is not arguing at all. I sniff a monumental attempt at evasive misdirection here.
Didn't your mother ever tell you that it's impolite to talk about others in front of them like they aren't there?

I admit to having reasons from personal observation for suspecting consciousness in the universe, reasons which I don't expect to convince others and which I'm not relying on here. Also, I don't claim to know the full nature of the principle to which I refer.

At the same time, such a principle is hardly any more vague than a Nothing which can "nevertheless" create something. If nothing can "nevertheless" be all-creative, why couldn't an underlying principle just as easily "nevertheless" be conscious? That should be satisfactory to you, since you have no problem with the "counter-intuitive".
I rarely listened to her as she talked nonsense as well. And your persistent denialism makes it wearying to address you personally so I'm rather addressing the wider audience and finally, Sue me. And I note that you ignored the pertinent question of whether you do or don't credit intelligence to this amorphous principle of yours, so I suggest you treat my posts with that modicum of respect before you start pointing the accusing finger at me.

You continue to insult my intelligence by persistently overlooking a pretty clear case - yes, nobody knows one way or the other and I have never presented the something from nothing case as anything more than a half hypothetical way out of the impasse of turtles all the way down, which again with small respect, you insisted was the problem with my suggestion rather than a way out of it.

Even without the turtle -stack of a First cause causing a first cause, or the evasive evasion of an origin with a vague underlying principle which is eternal, endlessly created or appeared out of nothing and which problem appears unaddressed by you. You jedi- wave a totally vague 'underlying principle' and think you have made a case? I don't treat our readership as though I expect them to be gullible dodos.

Your glass house is in in shards, chum, and I don't see that you were any better off for me talking to you rather than everybody. Your case still looked like a dogs' dinner.
You're getting awfully hot under the collar.

Before you go passing judgement on how I "think (I) have made a case", you should look back at my previous posts where you'll see that I've used such terms as "postulating" and "suspecting" to refer to my position, which I've endeavored to back up with logical arguments.
And I note that you ignored the pertinent question of whether you do or don't credit intelligence to this amorphous principle of yours
I hardly think this is a fair assessment after I said in my last post,
I admit to having reasons from personal observation for suspecting consciousness in the universe
(that's where I used the term "suspecting").

Frankly, I think I've treated your position considerably better than you've treated mine. I haven't referred to yours as a "jedi-wave" or "a monumental attempt at evasive misdirection". I haven't compared it to "a dog's dinner". I called it a fallacy of composition at one point, and I think that's the strongest language I've used. The phenomenon I'm proposing is undetected (perhaps undetectable) and must therefore be sought by rational----rather than empirical----means, which adds a unique challenge to its defense, and through it all I've tried to keep a cool head (trust me----there were a couple of things I wanted to say and didn't).

At least give me credit for that.
:D I thought you might accuse me of getting arieted. Nope. You might have realised care with selection of wording rather than infuriated typing. this was merely applying a traditional philosopher's rebuttal tactic known as 'If you try to pull the high moral ground card, I'm going to ream you a new toilet -organ'.

I'm well aware of what you've posted, including persistent ignoring and misrepresentation of my position, and now you compund your trickery with the weary old 'I did not use those words' ploy. Of course you didn't use 'Jedi wave' - I did to describe your arguing position with this very vague to be meaningless 'basic reality'. I invited you to explain what that is, if not an Intelligence (Aka 'God') You still evade doing so.

I don't think you've treated my position at all fairly. You have used every trick in the book so as to misrepresent it, including ignoring that I have repeatedly emphasised the speculative nature of all this Cosmic origins stuff, and that all I'm saying is that more has to be validated with a Cosmic Intelligence (which again you seem to shilly -shally about owning up to or saying you don't claim that) than a something from nothing semi -hypothesis to get out of the infinite regression impasse.

We could address these points rather than get into flame wars.
William wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 3:39 pm [Replying to Tcg in post #1]
As I like to present for example, maybe god was given a chemistry set for Christmas one year and he accidentally blew himself up. Then his bits and pieces and those of the chemistry set become the universe. There'd be no more god any more.
A more grandiose analogy would be to liken the "accidentally blew himself up" and "chemistry set" to;

Purposefully entering the simulation he created and divesting his consciousness within it.

The result being "losing himself within his own creation." [= "no creator outside the creation any more" - at least for the duration of the experience.]
Image
Tricky stuff, Something-from-nothing particles.

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Re: Let's pretend...

Post #66

Post by Athetotheist »

JoeyKnothead wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 11:29 pm Pre-edited for clarity...
Athetotheist wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 9:33 pm I don't claim to know the full nature of the principle to which I refer. I've been trying to argue for its existence, not to speculate indepth on its nature.
What do you know of the nature of this principle underlying the existence of what we can detect?

And what is it we're detecting? The universe? Life? Consciousness? Serious question so I know what we're fussing on.

Let me offer some notions so you know I enjoy a serious discussion, even if I goof around. I don't try to play "gotcha", or try to mischaracterize what folks have to allow. As you've mentioned you're doing some reasoned speculating, and not claiming absolute Truth(tm), I'd like to see if we can find some small t truth in your proposal.

Not to butter your biscuits, but I see you're undoubtedly intelligent, so I'm just trying to siphon me some of it off of ya :wave:
I thank you, Joey, for your measured response.

Like I say, it's beyond me to fully define the principle I'm going on about but I figure there must be one. I may have mentioned it elsewhere, but perhaps it would help to start by framing it in the context of this discourse from Carl Sagan, and the mistake I hear him making here:



The mistake I find in Sagan's "save a step" argument is that it's tu quoque. He uses faith-based explanations of God as an excuse to offer faith-based explanations of the universe and makes it out like the question of the universe's existence doesn't need an answer. It does. To take "God" [for lack of a better word] out of the picture, something other than God has to be in place to explain the universe. The universe itself isn't adequate, because invoking it to explain it is circular reasoning. And assuming that it has always existed doesn't address why it has ever existed. That, I believe, leaves room for serious speculation.

To be fair to Sagan, I find inspiration in a comment made about him by his widow Ann Druyan in a 2006 interview with NPR:

"He was religious, but in his view, the traditional religious view of God was too small, with a God of - who made the world; not, perhaps, 400 billion stars in our galaxy alone, with a retinue, each star with a retinue of perhaps a hundred worlds and so many galaxies.

He found that that God was inadequate, and that, I think, one of the reasons he's so important 10 years later and that buildings all over the world are dedicated in his memory, is because he was a kind of - he was imagining a God that would be worthy of the revelations of science - one that would reflect what we know, not one that would be mired in a moment in time thousands of years ago, before we had the ability to interrogate nature.
"

This isn't my entire train of thought on the subject, but it's a basic layout.

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Re: Let's pretend...

Post #67

Post by Athetotheist »

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #65
I don't think you've treated my position at all fairly. You have used every trick in the book so as to misrepresent it, including ignoring that I have repeatedly emphasised the speculative nature of all this Cosmic origins stuff, and that all I'm saying is that more has to be validated with a Cosmic Intelligence (which again you seem to shilly -shally about owning up to or saying you don't claim that) than a something from nothing semi -hypothesis to get out of the infinite regression impasse.
Okay, I get that your "something from nothing" scenario is hypothetical. Maybe I harped on it a bit too much. What I really take issue with is your assertion that it's so much more logical than my position. Granted, I'm proposing a phenomenon which isn't readily observable, but I don't think that detracts from its feasibility.

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Re: Let's pretend...

Post #68

Post by TRANSPONDER »

Athetotheist wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 2:13 pm [Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #65
I don't think you've treated my position at all fairly. You have used every trick in the book so as to misrepresent it, including ignoring that I have repeatedly emphasised the speculative nature of all this Cosmic origins stuff, and that all I'm saying is that more has to be validated with a Cosmic Intelligence (which again you seem to shilly -shally about owning up to or saying you don't claim that) than a something from nothing semi -hypothesis to get out of the infinite regression impasse.
Okay, I get that your "something from nothing" scenario is hypothetical. Maybe I harped on it a bit too much. What I really take issue with is your assertion that it's so much more logical than my position. Granted, I'm proposing a phenomenon which isn't readily observable, but I don't think that detracts from its feasibility.
The point I'm making about an answer nobody knows is that adding intelligence to whatever the answer may be is adding a logical entity, that's all. I'd still like to know whether you propose a First cause that is intelligent or not. That would clear matters up quite a bit. E,g if you did not claim it is intelligent, then I'd drop my multiplied entities argument. I'm also suggesting a nothing that is nothing enough no to need something to create it might itself produce the illusion of solidity that we call matter and I point to a few physics ideas floating about (virtual particles) that might offer some support.

As to a basis, I have heard of talk of a universal constant (not to be confused with universal constants) that was a particular number and the argument was that even if everything else could be explained naturally, there was still that. I don't know whether that has a bearing on this underlying reality or not. There's also an evolved God that is hovering in the wings, but I rather hope it stays there.

I was inclined to agree that Sagan using a leap of faith (so to speak) for Theism hardly validates a leap of faith for a natural/material claim, but I'd have to watch the video. Right now I've got a livestream to sit in.

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Re: Let's pretend...

Post #69

Post by William »

[Replying to Athetotheist in post #67]
I'm proposing a phenomenon which isn't readily observable, but I don't think that detracts from its feasibility.
And the OP analogy is terribly unfitting too, which is why I made an attempt # to spruce it up a bit - to reflect the nature of nature in its grandiose and thus to better reflect the more likely nature of any being{s} whom may have created it.

In the infinite swirl of no beginning or end [see Mandelbrot Set for evidence of that being possible] the issue of "what came first - the Mind or the Matter" - becomes an absurd question asked from the depths of lightless dark....

Having a cry-baby because one doesn't like the idea that one was mindfully placed within it and how 'evil' such a mind 'must be' to have done so, and sulkily deciding one will be rid of reality when ones brain finally dies, is no 'answer' and romancing about one's date with oblivion won't 'make it so', no matter how much faith is placed init.

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Re: Let's pretend...

Post #70

Post by TRANSPONDER »

William wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 6:00 pm [Replying to Athetotheist in post #67]
I'm proposing a phenomenon which isn't readily observable, but I don't think that detracts from its feasibility.
And the OP analogy is terribly unfitting too, which is why I made an attempt # to spruce it up a bit - to reflect the nature of nature in its grandiose and thus to better reflect the more likely nature of any being{s} whom may have created it.

In the infinite swirl of no beginning or end [see Mandelbrot Set for evidence of that being possible] the issue of "what came first - the Mind or the Matter" - becomes an absurd question asked from the depths of lightless dark....

Having a cry-baby because one doesn't like the idea that one was mindfully placed within it and how 'evil' such a mind 'must be' to have done so, and sulkily deciding one will be rid of reality when ones brain finally dies, is no 'answer' and romancing about one's date with oblivion won't 'make it so', no matter how much faith is placed init.
I would put it quite like that myself. I am not clean hands of mockery myself, but I prefer not to poison the well. I don't quite know whether you are dumping on the idea of something in the mind being got or not being God, but the atheist (or non -believer) argument is that feelings of awe about nature or wonder about what does on in our heads, never mind the heads of others, does not evidentially or logically translate into anything to which the term 'god' might be applied. It's simply appeal to unknown and a tendency to anthropomorphise what we don't understand. And that' not to poison the well, but to point to logical fallacies.

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