a challenge to those who feel intelligent

[altagid]

Reefer, I know - and I dont mean to be rude - I am pretty busy what with trying to steer around the MOM scammers - may they live to see their children die!, putting my plants under screens and ranting on about fizziks. I owe you an answer

[altagid]

a couple of links i hope will clarify my views on religion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_spaghetti_monster

I should have guessed that Herr Smitler was Pastafarian. You know that shit is just load of meatballs?

[Polymirize]

when you cant test your theories with an experiment you are no longer doing science - its philosophy or something else - actually its called "bullshit".

We actually prefer the term philosophy, but then again, it's important to realise that labels never really capture their targets anyway. So go ahead and call it bullshit if you want. Here's the part of your logic that I have trouble following: We should only accept what science can verify for us, and at the same time, jumping ahead to think that science explains everything. The great strength of science is that it's free to change its mind whenever data suggests that it should, but that doesn't mean I can't take it with a grain of salt when science claims it has all the answers. I've heard that before, many times throughout history. I don't believe psychics or televangelists either, although I don't know why I'd link you all together.
I guess I think all notions of morality/god/spirit, or whatever you want to call it arise from that space that comes into being when we realise that we'll never KNOW. Because absense of evidence is not evidence of absense. There could be something more fundamental than strings and governed by still deeper natural laws, couldn't there? Averages don't exactly yield absolutes do they? Closer and closer approximation but no limit. Empiricism is a castle made of sand.
I guess it's all bullshit after all.

[Tmar.aLL.DaYmar]

let people beleive whatever stupid crap they want. as long as they arent trying to force their beleifs on you, leave them be.

[Adolf Smittler]

We actually prefer the term philosophy, but then again, it's important to realise that labels never really capture their targets anyway. So go ahead and call it bullshit if you want. Here's the part of your logic that I have trouble following: We should only accept what science can verify for us, and at the same time, jumping ahead to think that science explains everything. The great strength of science is that it's free to change its mind whenever data suggests that it should, but that doesn't mean I can't take it with a grain of salt when science claims it has all the answers. I've heard that before, many times throughout history. I don't believe psychics or televangelists either, although I don't know why I'd link you all together.
I guess I think all notions of morality/god/spirit, or whatever you want to call it arise from that space that comes into being when we realise that we'll never KNOW. Because absense of evidence is not evidence of absense. There could be something more fundamental than strings and governed by still deeper natural laws, couldn't there? Averages don't exactly yield absolutes do they? Closer and closer approximation but no limit. Empiricism is a castle made of sand.
I guess it's all bullshit after all.

if modern science claimed to know everything, they wouldn't still be studying the universe, now would they? i don't see any reason why we couldn't know everything one day. that's not to say that we will, or that it's even likely, but there's no reason to rule it out.

[altagid]

Where did you get this argument? Nothing wrong with quoting but its appropriate to give the source.

This is interesting.

Here's a modern cosmological argument in favour of theism:

1. The existence of something is intelligible only if it has an explanation.
(By definition of intelligibility)

2. The existence of the universe thus either:
(a) is unintelligible, or
(b) has an explanation (from step 1)

Essentially this says that "intelligible" means "has an explanation" - its a definition of terms. I have no issue with this.

3. No rational person should accept 2-a (By definition of rationality)

I cant agree with that - I do agree that one shouldnt give up trying to understand but what law says that human brain is capable of understanding the true nature of the universe? The brain evolved to solve the problems of of early humans - mostly this involved social problems since for humans being a member of society is everything. As any high school student will tell you , the brain is not well adapted to doing math or physics. These habits of thought dont come naturally to us - in fact we havent been able to do them at all until very recently!! Why should the brain of a social ape on some small planet in some godforsake... uh scuse me .. in some remote corner of the cosmos have the necessary tools to comprehend the universe ? We may well be stuck with only being able to understand a small part of it - in fact I am am pretty sure this is the case.

4. A rational person should accept 2-b: The universe has an explanation.
(from steps 2 and 3)

As I said this is optimistic

5. There are only 3 kinds of explanations:

(a) Scientific: Explanations of the form C+L->E (independent initial physical conditions, plus relevant laws, yield the event explained)

(b) Personal: Explanations that cite the desires, beliefs, powers, and intentions of some personal agent.

(c) Essential: The essence of the thing to be explained necessitates its existence or qualities.

I havent thought carefully about this categorization. By c do you mean irreducable facts? Facts that just cant be explained in terms of other facts? Then you are likely committing the fallacy of "begging the premise". This is a confusing term but it means you have sneakily assumed your conclusion. The argument that follows is just a sleight of rhetoric to distract. Give an example of an "irreducible fact" or an "essential object" the only one that springs to mind is God and it is his very existence that is being debated. There may be no irreducible facts. There may be a never ending chain of discoveries and revelations - this certainly has been our experience to date - why should it end?

Rogue I have to take a break here since my wife wants to smoke - we can take up the rest later if you care. This is enought to be getting on with:rasta:

Interesting!

[altagid]

Also, I apologize for bragging about my credentials earlier. I was a jerk. I am an older guy and I have been an academic all my life. There are many people like me and most of them are a lot smarter. I just lost patience with what I considered to be a case of extreme intellectual laziness. Being an atheist leans towards impatience - you realize there isnt much time. But I was an ass about it. Excuse me.

[altagid]

7. The explanation for the existence of the whole universe can't be essential. (The universe is not the sort of thing that exists necessarily.)

I think the word for this is, if Herr Smitler will pardon me, hutzpah! ummm .... whaddya mean "necessarily" ? There are a few possibilities:

If you mean "is it necessarily so that the universe exists?" Then this is a debate about perception - is what you see real? Then who the fuck is asking these questions. Am I just a brain in a vat being fed a videotape and why couldnt I have gotten better writers? Does the self exist or is that just another perception. Thats not what we are after.

So if we suppose that our current universe arose from something else - that our universe has a finite age it is logical to speculate whether it had to be this way. And modern cosmology is that the universe did indeed arise from something else and that the particular nature of our universe including at least some of the physics were the result of random fluctuations in first instants of the its existence.

But wait up - theres at least one more logical possibility that the universe has always existed. Oh! Then there is the possibility that the universe was born in the cataclysmic death of a previous universe - and that could be part of a chain that has no beginning. Like turtles holding up turtles holding up turtles. It need not be homogenous. Perhaps God created the universe and he was created by the occupants of a previous universe who were just trying to get even with the God that had created them. Or perhaps their universe had always existed or perhaps it was made by a turtle! I could go on but I think its clear there are, at least logically, an infinite variety of such possibilities.

There is a more abstract interpretation of the universe in that statement: what is the essential nature of its physical existence. What really is matter, energy, time? After strings whats next? Well if we arrive at some understanding that cant be further reduced then I agree, this is a meta theory, its a theory that explains science and therefore it is NOT science. But why does it have to be that way? Perhaps we will keep peeling away onion layers for ever and weeping all the way. Perhaps its mixed! Some facts are irreducible and some are not!

Sorry for the long stoned ramble but in short there are a lot of possibilities to eliminate and #7 ignores them - a "bifurcation fallacy"

Therefore.....

Never got there


uhhh ... I just realized I've had my pants on backwards all day .... dont pay any attention to this crap!:stoned:

[altagid]

So smoking the leaves of my growing plants: Not the best thing to do but we are dry. I get enough of a buzz to get mildly confused - doesnt help my wife much

[altagid]

Ok - I got my pants on the right way around and I am thinking a bit more clearly. Yeah - ignore all that blather I wrote. You kick this down at its foundation:

The entire argument depends on offering a rational explanation. But "God created the universe" is not actually an explanation. It,s a story masquerading as an explanation. The point of an explanation is to reduce the amount of mystery and to simplify your understanding. The creation theory doesnt do this - not at all. It simply moves the mysteries to another place and there they are much greater. Immediately one would ask.

Who created God?

And if God was never created but has always been here then why couldnt existence always have been here without ever being created? You havent really made any progress , just swapped one mystery for another

And then you get: Why did he create it? What is his nature? How many of these things are there out there?

These questions usually get deflected with something like "the true nature of God cant be grasped by the human mind" I agree! but wasnt the point of this explanation to provide understanding not mystery? Is this the "rational explanation" that was offered at the start of the proof?