There is evidence for God according to Atheist Philosopher

[AquinasForGod]

Question for debate: Do atheist just missunderstand what evidence means?

Alex O'Connor (Cosmic Skeptic) and atheist philosopher says there is evidence for God. He explains why in the first part of this discussion.



He is not the only one, though. Also, Joseph Schmid explains that there is evidence for God, even though he is agnostic.

Alex explains that evidence doesn't have to fully convince you in order to serve as evidence. Something serves as evidence even if it only moves you by 1% toward belief in God.

If you say, there is no "true" evidence for God then that is the no true Scotsman fallacy. Or if you say anything like that. No true evidence, not actual evidence, not real evidence, etc.

It is either evidence or it is not.

He says, an argument could be successful in the sense that it makes the conclusion more probably true than false.

He says, but another way an argument can be successful is if it makes a conclusion more probably true than sans the argument.

This means that if prior to the argument you thought the probability for God was 1%, then after say the fine-tuning argument, you raise that probability to 2%, then the argument was successful.

[Diagoras]

I suggest that where benchwarmer and I are at odds with your position is in the manner of theologists not constraining themselves in the same way.

Let's focus on this a bit more closely. What, exactly, do you (and perhaps also benchwarmer) mean by "the same way"?

I acknowledge you are having to reply to two people on the same points, so thanks for making the effort (‘bringing us up to speed’). I meant the ’constraint’ comment to reflect the practice of some theologians of ascribing ‘God’ as the solution wherever they find something beautiful, surprising, complex, etc.

You’ll find memes on the internet mocking a ‘proof of God’ based on a single flag flapping despite other flags around it remaining still.

The post from benchwarmer that details how a more scientific ‘prayer experiment’ might work says much the same thing: we don’t see apologists ever attempt to falsify their hypothesis. It’s always, “Looks designed - Bam! Must have been God…”

I’ll find the link and edit this post to include it.

[Edit] Post #53: viewtopic.php?p=1101888#p1101888

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #42]

But there is no reason to accept natural metaphysics. If there were clear evidence that is the correct view of reality, then we wouldn't have so many bright philosophers, who are atheists that reject it.

This is why I brought up mathematical realism because there are a lot of atheists that accept it. They accept the idea that mathematics is outside space and time. Sir Roger Penrose is one of them, a mathematician and physicist.

"Sometimes it takes a layman to set these people straight." (Lucy van Pelt)

It doesn't matter what philosophers accept or reject. Philosophy is Theoretical and the mind experiment needs science to verify it, or it is merely hypothesis. Now philosophy does a good job of straightening out thinking, logically, but aside that I have seen not a few philosophers being apparently illogical, they are limited because science can clarify what they can only speculate about. From Aristotle to Nietzsche, they got into a mess because the science was lacking.
E.g If Nietzsche had known the DNA -instinct explanation of Morality, he wouldn't have spent an instant worrying about where morals would come from if God was Dead.

Bottom line here, Physics and the reality of a known physical universe is the validation of the natural/material, and metaphysics can play its' games and good luck to it.

Underlining the bottom line, with reference to the video, it was an interesting discussion and both of them weren't bad. I should have liked to be in the chat myself, but a lot of slips were apparently made. perhaps because a theistic approach was being considered, even by the atheist. An atheist philosopher or not, if she or he or it knew the arguments, they would no more have to consider the Theistic aspect than a maker of orrereys would have to include God in the mechanism.

Attaching to the underlining, mathematics may be outside space and time (I can get that) but don't waste our time implying that Either naturalist materialism is invalid because of that OR that by saying that ..'Hey, oooh, wow...God is outside of space and time, too" you can suppose that does a single, solitary, sub atomic thing to make the case for a god.

Name your own, and I still cannot recall an explanation of how you made the Leap of Faith from Kalam -god to Biblegod. As a former atheist who was familiar with the arguments (as I recall you said) you should not have been bamboozled by Anselm, Lane - Craig or any of the others. But then, maybe that's the problem with atheist philosophers, after all, a notable atheist professor of philosophy was bamboozled into sortagod - theism by the IC claim..

I have said more than once that I am not convinced of the Kalam argument. Other arguments I find strong like the modern Aristotelean argument. I am convinced that substances are a composite of form and matter. It makes more sense of the world we observe, even quantum mechanics.

It sounds like to me, you are convinced of scientism, but I am unsure why as it is such a weak position, but then it seems you might be open to mathematical realism.

The thing is, if mathematical realism is true, then there are objects that exist beyond what the scientific method can account for. This means that reasoning itself can help us understand other truths about reality.

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to benchwarmer in post #53]

Well, they can posit whatever they like, but are theologians positing these attributes based on observations of other things? i.e. I prayed for X, and X happened. My wife repeated the same thing the following week. Then my neighbor tried it. Every time someone prays for X, it happens! We can find no known source of this prayer answering, so lets posit there is a 'god' doing it until we find a better answer.

Aristotle did, yes. He started with an objective observation. Things change. In fact, it seems ALL things change, even if only spacial location. He starts from this objective fact that pretty much everyone will agree upon. Things change.

What does it mean to change, though? What is change in itself?

He offers a reasonable answer. Change is a potential being actualized by something actual. A potential could not actualize itself because it isn't actual. An electron couldn't actualize its existence if it is not actually existing. So he shows through reasoning that when something changes, there is a potential for it to change, such as a stick has the potential to be on fire. But the stick cannot catch itself on fire because it has no autonomy, so something else must catch it on fire. A potential cannot catch it on fire because a potential has no active powers. Thus something actual must catch it on fire, such as a human with a lighter.

Once he has established this first principle, he then shows a logical consequence of it. How is the electron existing here and now as a negative charge? He is pointing to per see, not to a causal chain. He concedes that sure a causal chain can extend forever, but not a per se chain. Let me give an example.

If I said mirror A is reflecting a cat and you asked how, and I said because mirror A is reflecting mirror B. I haven't answered how any of the mirrors have the power to reflect a cat. I am not accounting for how they exist here and now with that very ability. And if I say mirror B is reflecting a cat because it is reflecting mirror C, and so on to infinite mirrors, I haven't shown how that infinite set if mirrors is reflecting a cat.

This per se chain must terminate. Mirror D for example is next to a cat. Now is makes sense how mirrors A, B, and C are reflecting each others reflecting a cat.

This means there is some change that cannot be accounted for unless there is something that is purely actual without any potential. Otherwise, we have an infinite per se chain that never explains how it has the power it does. It doesn't explain anything.

But if there is a purely actual thing, then it is where all such per se chains of change terminate.

If there is a purely actual being, we can logically show many things must be true about it, which Aristotle does in Metaphyiscs book 12. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metap ... 2.xii.html

When we start from natural things that everyone can agree to and derive logically a principle, this is natural philosophy. This is what science evolved from.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #42]

But there is no reason to accept natural metaphysics. If there were clear evidence that is the correct view of reality, then we wouldn't have so many bright philosophers, who are atheists that reject it.

This is why I brought up mathematical realism because there are a lot of atheists that accept it. They accept the idea that mathematics is outside space and time. Sir Roger Penrose is one of them, a mathematician and physicist.

"Sometimes it takes a layman to set these people straight." (Lucy van Pelt)

It doesn't matter what philosophers accept or reject. Philosophy is Theoretical and the mind experiment needs science to verify it, or it is merely hypothesis. Now philosophy does a good job of straightening out thinking, logically, but aside that I have seen not a few philosophers being apparently illogical, they are limited because science can clarify what they can only speculate about. From Aristotle to Nietzsche, they got into a mess because the science was lacking.
E.g If Nietzsche had known the DNA -instinct explanation of Morality, he wouldn't have spent an instant worrying about where morals would come from if God was Dead.

Bottom line here, Physics and the reality of a known physical universe is the validation of the natural/material, and metaphysics can play its' games and good luck to it.

Underlining the bottom line, with reference to the video, it was an interesting discussion and both of them weren't bad. I should have liked to be in the chat myself, but a lot of slips were apparently made. perhaps because a theistic approach was being considered, even by the atheist. An atheist philosopher or not, if she or he or it knew the arguments, they would no more have to consider the Theistic aspect than a maker of orrereys would have to include God in the mechanism.

Attaching to the underlining, mathematics may be outside space and time (I can get that) but don't waste our time implying that Either naturalist materialism is invalid because of that OR that by saying that ..'Hey, oooh, wow...God is outside of space and time, too" you can suppose that does a single, solitary, sub atomic thing to make the case for a god.

Name your own, and I still cannot recall an explanation of how you made the Leap of Faith from Kalam -god to Biblegod. As a former atheist who was familiar with the arguments (as I recall you said) you should not have been bamboozled by Anselm, Lane - Craig or any of the others. But then, maybe that's the problem with atheist philosophers, after all, a notable atheist professor of philosophy was bamboozled into sortagod - theism by the IC claim..

I have said more than once that I am not convinced of the Kalam argument. Other arguments I find strong like the modern Aristotelean argument. I am convinced that substances are a composite of form and matter. It makes more sense of the world we observe, even quantum mechanics.

It sounds like to me, you are convinced of scientism, but I am unsure why as it is such a weak position, but then it seems you might be open to mathematical realism.

The thing is, if mathematical realism is true, then there are objects that exist beyond what the scientific method can account for. This means that reasoning itself can help us understand other truths about reality.

Sorry, chum, all nonsense or irrelevant. Kalam makes one point: we don't know how the cosmic stuff began, supposing it did. I accept that, and I even credit an act of creation perhaps more than you do. It just is irrelevant because it does not do a thing to get us to a god, which is the point of the forum. Not to debate philosophy or science.

'Scientism' is I believe a creationist smear, not a valid philosophical term. It was a strawman of the rationalist/atheist position by accusing us of a Faith position regarding science. Irrelevant anyway, as science has made it's case as the best (perhaps only) way of showing what is. Reliance on it rather than Faith is what we do.

It doesn't do you any good by appealing to things beyond wot we wot not of. That is an appeal to unknowns and still doesn't get you to a god, only to science we don't know about, at least as a perfectly viable alternative. Putting a god as a possible undisproved option in gaps for god is in fact a weaker position than crediting the science that has already proved its' validity.

And that still only gets you to some sorta god. I'd still like to know about your leap of Faith from there to Biblegod. If indeed you have Faith in that.

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #42]

But there is no reason to accept natural metaphysics. If there were clear evidence that is the correct view of reality, then we wouldn't have so many bright philosophers, who are atheists that reject it.

This is why I brought up mathematical realism because there are a lot of atheists that accept it. They accept the idea that mathematics is outside space and time. Sir Roger Penrose is one of them, a mathematician and physicist.

"Sometimes it takes a layman to set these people straight." (Lucy van Pelt)

It doesn't matter what philosophers accept or reject. Philosophy is Theoretical and the mind experiment needs science to verify it, or it is merely hypothesis. Now philosophy does a good job of straightening out thinking, logically, but aside that I have seen not a few philosophers being apparently illogical, they are limited because science can clarify what they can only speculate about. From Aristotle to Nietzsche, they got into a mess because the science was lacking.
E.g If Nietzsche had known the DNA -instinct explanation of Morality, he wouldn't have spent an instant worrying about where morals would come from if God was Dead.

Bottom line here, Physics and the reality of a known physical universe is the validation of the natural/material, and metaphysics can play its' games and good luck to it.

Underlining the bottom line, with reference to the video, it was an interesting discussion and both of them weren't bad. I should have liked to be in the chat myself, but a lot of slips were apparently made. perhaps because a theistic approach was being considered, even by the atheist. An atheist philosopher or not, if she or he or it knew the arguments, they would no more have to consider the Theistic aspect than a maker of orrereys would have to include God in the mechanism.

Attaching to the underlining, mathematics may be outside space and time (I can get that) but don't waste our time implying that Either naturalist materialism is invalid because of that OR that by saying that ..'Hey, oooh, wow...God is outside of space and time, too" you can suppose that does a single, solitary, sub atomic thing to make the case for a god.

Name your own, and I still cannot recall an explanation of how you made the Leap of Faith from Kalam -god to Biblegod. As a former atheist who was familiar with the arguments (as I recall you said) you should not have been bamboozled by Anselm, Lane - Craig or any of the others. But then, maybe that's the problem with atheist philosophers, after all, a notable atheist professor of philosophy was bamboozled into sortagod - theism by the IC claim..

I have said more than once that I am not convinced of the Kalam argument. Other arguments I find strong like the modern Aristotelean argument. I am convinced that substances are a composite of form and matter. It makes more sense of the world we observe, even quantum mechanics.

It sounds like to me, you are convinced of scientism, but I am unsure why as it is such a weak position, but then it seems you might be open to mathematical realism.

The thing is, if mathematical realism is true, then there are objects that exist beyond what the scientific method can account for. This means that reasoning itself can help us understand other truths about reality.

Sorry, chum, all nonsense or irrelevant. Kalam makes one point: we don't know how the cosmic stuff began, supposing it did. I accept that, and I even credit an act of creation perhaps more than you do. It just is irrelevant because it does not do a thing to get us to a god, which is the point of the forum. Not to debate philosophy or science.

'Scientism' is I believe a creationist smear, not a valid philosophical term. It was a strawman of the rationalist/atheist position by accusing us of a Faith position regarding science. Irrelevant anyway, as science has made it's case as the best (perhaps only) way of showing what is. Reliance on it rather than Faith is what we do.

It doesn't do you any good by appealing to things beyond wot we wot not of. That is an appeal to unknowns and still doesn't get you to a god, only to science we don't know about, at least as a perfectly viable alternative. Putting a god as a possible undisproved option in gaps for god is in fact a weaker position than crediting the science that has already proved its' validity.

And that still only gets you to some sorta god. I'd still like to know about your leap of Faith from there to Biblegod. If indeed you have Faith in that.

Are you not reading what I type? I will copy and past it.

I have said more than once that I am not convinced of the Kalam argument. Other arguments I find strong like the modern Aristotelean argument. I am convinced that substances are a composite of form and matter. It makes more sense of the world we observe, even quantum mechanics.

I Have NOT even one time argued for the KALAM. I just do not get why you keep bringing it up in relation to my views.

[JoeyKnothead]

It sounds like to me, you are convinced of scientism, but I am unsure why as it is such a weak position, but then it seems you might be open to mathematical realism.

That wasn't no bible they rode up to the moon.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #42]

But there is no reason to accept natural metaphysics. If there were clear evidence that is the correct view of reality, then we wouldn't have so many bright philosophers, who are atheists that reject it.

This is why I brought up mathematical realism because there are a lot of atheists that accept it. They accept the idea that mathematics is outside space and time. Sir Roger Penrose is one of them, a mathematician and physicist.

"Sometimes it takes a layman to set these people straight." (Lucy van Pelt)

It doesn't matter what philosophers accept or reject. Philosophy is Theoretical and the mind experiment needs science to verify it, or it is merely hypothesis. Now philosophy does a good job of straightening out thinking, logically, but aside that I have seen not a few philosophers being apparently illogical, they are limited because science can clarify what they can only speculate about. From Aristotle to Nietzsche, they got into a mess because the science was lacking.
E.g If Nietzsche had known the DNA -instinct explanation of Morality, he wouldn't have spent an instant worrying about where morals would come from if God was Dead.

Bottom line here, Physics and the reality of a known physical universe is the validation of the natural/material, and metaphysics can play its' games and good luck to it.

Underlining the bottom line, with reference to the video, it was an interesting discussion and both of them weren't bad. I should have liked to be in the chat myself, but a lot of slips were apparently made. perhaps because a theistic approach was being considered, even by the atheist. An atheist philosopher or not, if she or he or it knew the arguments, they would no more have to consider the Theistic aspect than a maker of orrereys would have to include God in the mechanism.

Attaching to the underlining, mathematics may be outside space and time (I can get that) but don't waste our time implying that Either naturalist materialism is invalid because of that OR that by saying that ..'Hey, oooh, wow...God is outside of space and time, too" you can suppose that does a single, solitary, sub atomic thing to make the case for a god.

Name your own, and I still cannot recall an explanation of how you made the Leap of Faith from Kalam -god to Biblegod. As a former atheist who was familiar with the arguments (as I recall you said) you should not have been bamboozled by Anselm, Lane - Craig or any of the others. But then, maybe that's the problem with atheist philosophers, after all, a notable atheist professor of philosophy was bamboozled into sortagod - theism by the IC claim..

I have said more than once that I am not convinced of the Kalam argument. Other arguments I find strong like the modern Aristotelean argument. I am convinced that substances are a composite of form and matter. It makes more sense of the world we observe, even quantum mechanics.

It sounds like to me, you are convinced of scientism, but I am unsure why as it is such a weak position, but then it seems you might be open to mathematical realism.

The thing is, if mathematical realism is true, then there are objects that exist beyond what the scientific method can account for. This means that reasoning itself can help us understand other truths about reality.

Sorry, chum, all nonsense or irrelevant. Kalam makes one point: we don't know how the cosmic stuff began, supposing it did. I accept that, and I even credit an act of creation perhaps more than you do. It just is irrelevant because it does not do a thing to get us to a god, which is the point of the forum. Not to debate philosophy or science.

'Scientism' is I believe a creationist smear, not a valid philosophical term. It was a strawman of the rationalist/atheist position by accusing us of a Faith position regarding science. Irrelevant anyway, as science has made it's case as the best (perhaps only) way of showing what is. Reliance on it rather than Faith is what we do.

It doesn't do you any good by appealing to things beyond wot we wot not of. That is an appeal to unknowns and still doesn't get you to a god, only to science we don't know about, at least as a perfectly viable alternative. Putting a god as a possible undisproved option in gaps for god is in fact a weaker position than crediting the science that has already proved its' validity.

And that still only gets you to some sorta god. I'd still like to know about your leap of Faith from there to Biblegod. If indeed you have Faith in that.

Are you not reading what I type? I will copy and past it.

I have said more than once that I am not convinced of the Kalam argument. Other arguments I find strong like the modern Aristotelean argument. I am convinced that substances are a composite of form and matter. It makes more sense of the world we observe, even quantum mechanics.

I Have NOT even one time argued for the KALAM. I just do not get why you keep bringing it up in relation to my views.

Did you not read or understand what I posted? I was agreeing with you and saying that it was irrelevant

"Kalam makes one point: we don't know how the cosmic stuff began, supposing it did. I accept that, and I even credit an act of creation perhaps more than you do. It just is irrelevant because it does not do a thing to get us to a god, which is the point of the forum. Not to debate philosophy or science"

Since you fret about that pointless point and don't mention the rest of my post, I presume that you don't disagree with it, rather than you'd prefer to ignore it. Because of course that would take you away from 'Philosophy' to Sophistry, even if not to crafty Lawyerism.

[benchwarmer]

[Replying to benchwarmer in post #53]

Apologies for reducing your entire post to one line here, but I'd like to bring you up to speed with my conversation with Diagoras, just so I don't just end up repeating the same thing to you both.

So, it's not the same thing.

I'm afraid you're committing the same straw man argument that Diagoras did earlier (see post #24).

My argument is not that God and Dark Matter or the Multiverse are "the same." I'm saying they are analogous. Objecting to the analogy because the two things are not "the same" is just telling me you don't understand how analogies work.

Ok, clearly we seem to be talking past each other.

I'm also talking in analogies. Nowhere have I suggested that I think Dark Matter is God i.e. 'the same'.

I already answered the special pleading charge in post #27

viewtopic.php?p=1101575#p1101575

If you want to posit an unknown entity as a hypothesis and call this unknown entity "God", I'm fine with that. However, we all know most theists have a particular god in mind and are not just describing some yet to be determined thing.

Here is how I see the analogy (please correct, update, etc)

Physics: We observe effects that appear to be caused by gravity from 'something'. Let's hypothesize this 'something' is a form of matter exerting gravitational pull on other objects. Our hypothesis is contingent on direct observation of this 'something' or a different, validated hypothesis which discredits this one.

Theology: We <fill in the blank> which appears to be caused by a 'god'. Let's hypothesize this 'god' as <fill in the blank> which can do <what was in the first blank>. Our hypothesis is contingent on <fill in the blank>.

Please fill in the blanks so that we have two analogous forms. Or if I'm off in left field, please provide exactly how you see the analogy.

[TRANSPONDER]

I've seen 'Dark Matter is God' before. I've seen no evidence that it is Intelligent - which it would have to be to deserve the name. Otherwise it is just natural physics.

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #67]

So long as you understand that I do not think the Kalam is a convincing argument for God. You do not show defeaters for arguments I do find convincing.

I didn't really see the point because it is just so incorrect. Of course scientism requires faith. to claim reality is limited to only what science can try to validate take a lot of faith. First, because science doesn't ever prove anything. It only comes up with tentative beliefs, which are subject to change every time science finds a better explanation. Secondly, science cannot assume that reality only consists of things our human senses can sense.

And a big reason it takes faith is that it doesn't offer and cannot offer explanations of things we know should have truth values.

Here is an example. When we do the double slit experiment, we get data from it. Science doesn't tell us which interpretation of that data might be correct, such as the Copenhagen interpretation of the many worlds interpretation. There are other interpretations as well such as the Aristotelian interpretation. None of the interpretations change the data.

It seems there is a true interpretation of the data, but science cannot show us that truth. Science clearly cannot show us what all propositions are true.