The construct of god as an explanation for anything causes more problems than it solves.

1) One has not given an explanation if one has not proposed a mechanism. Giving god credit for something leads to the illusion that one has offered a satisfactory explanation, when one has actually not said much of anything. To illustrate, allow me to use "gremlins" for the word "god".

Where did the matter/energy for the Big Bang come from? "Gremlins did it". It sounds like I gave an explanation, but I proposed no mechanism, so I never really answered the question or explained where the matter/energy came from. So the question still remains. Yet, some theists criticize atheists for not having a definitive answer for this question. My point is that theists don't have an answer either. "God" by itself is not an answer. Where did god get the matter/energy from? "Oh, he is omnipotent so he can just do things like that". That is not an explanation. I could claim the same for Flying Spaghetti Monsters or Invisible Pink Unicorns.

2) Immaterial and material gods. People have many different concepts of god, so it makes showing the problems with god’s properties difficult, because not every theist believes he has such and such a property. But, allow me to address the problem immaterial beings have.

How does an immaterial being interact or have any influence on a material being? Being immaterial, god has no weight (i.e., no gravitational pull), no electrostatic charge (he can't touch or hold any material thing), no electro-magnetic waves (he is not light, cannot be seen, and cannot influence things that can be influenced by light), he has no molecules that can hold heat energy, etc. If he is immaterial, he has no physical force or energy with which to interact with the physical world. Mind powers don't cut it. How would an immaterial mind exert a physical force to move a planet, etc? What makes the physical world physical is that it responds to physical forces. And energy and light are physical. Remember E=mc^2? Matter/energy is one thing. Kinetic energy, heat, etc, are natural and part of the physical world.

By this point, some theists are saying, "OK, an immaterial god won't work because although we can dream of beings that can move physical objects with their mind, there is no mechanism to make it happen, so I changed my mind and now my god is a material god". So, now the problem is how does a material god do all the things people claim he does through natural means? And why haven’t physicists detected any physical forces of unknown origin doing everything from altering the rate at which neurons fire in human brains to stopping bullets from going through garments.

Look, a neuron does not fire unless the charge on the inside of neuron reaches -70 mV. Since we have already established that it would take some physical force to do that, why do we not find any out of place electrical charges targeting certain neurons so that God can give you a thought that you would not have had without his interference? That is just one issue. You name whatever you think god has done and tell me why we cannot find any trace of physical evidence that he did or is doing something.  

Someone yells, “We just haven’t discovered it, yet”. Well, my friend, everything is happening naturally and normally according to the natural laws of physics. There is no evidence that the system is being acted upon. If god is physical then he is an actor in the physical universe and we should be able to detect him doing things that change the normal course things would follow. Now, someone will bring up the strange behavior exhibited by sub-atomic particles in which quantum mechanics rules supreme. The strange behavior of mesons and such does not help the theist out. I am willing to show how it is not helpful if someone posits a coherent theory of how god uses quantum mechanics to answer prayers, etc. 

3) The probability of the existence of a god complex enough to be able to create physical laws and constants is less likely than the probability of the physical laws and constants existing without a creator. As difficult as it is for some of you to believe that something as complex as the universe exists as it is without a creator, it is even a bigger leap to believe that something way more complex, a god that can manipulate the constants of the universe, exists without a creator.

Now, Mormons believe god did have a creator, namely a father god, but this only moves the same question back a step and does nothing to solve the problem. You are attempting to solve the problem of how something complex can exist without a creator by supposing something even more complex existing without a creator. This does not prove that a god does not exist, because even highly improbable things can happen if given enough trials. But, it does make moot the argument for the existence of god due to the probabilities of the universe being the way it is without a creator. And you have made the whole matter worse by introducing a god whose existence and properties must be explained. 

In conclusion, using the concept of god as an explanatory factor for anything that happens in the universe creates more problems than it solves. Without a stated mechanism by which god does his miraculous deeds, using god as an explanation explains nothing. Immaterial beings have to have some interface by which to influence physical things. The question of how one gets an immaterial thing to influence a physical object is a lot more difficult than explaining whatever you need to explain without god. And finally, using a god to explain the origin of the universe just moves the questions back one step and makes the task even more difficult because now you have to account for something even more complex than the original question.

Hueffenhardt:1) One has not given an explanation if one has not proposed a mechanism. Giving god credit for something leads to the illusion that one has offered a satisfactory explanation, when one has actually not said much of anything. To illustrate, allow me to use "gremlins" for the word "god".

Where did the matter/energy for the Big Bang come from? "Gremlins did it". It sounds like I gave an explanation, but I proposed no mechanism, so I never really answered the question or explained where the matter/energy came from. So the question still remains. Yet, some theists criticize atheists for not having a definitive answer for this question. My point is that theists don't have an answer either. "God" by itself is not an answer. Where did god get the matter/energy from? "Oh, he is omnipotent so he can just do things like that". That is not an explanation. I could claim the same for Flying Spaghetti Monsters or Invisible Pink Unicorns.

Okay, I can see how you're saying that God isn't an answer can make sense.  But how is using God worse then what atheists use?  Neither can really be substantially proven.  To me, conceiving the existence of God takes just a stretch of the imagination as some of the other theories that explains things do. 

2) Immaterial and material gods. People have many different concepts of god, so it makes showing the problems with god’s properties difficult, because not every theist believes he has such and such a property. But, allow me to address the problem immaterial beings have.

I'm not going to quote the whole thing because it's said just above.  But you leave out the fact that to many theists, God is in a realm of his own.  Therefore, he isn't immaterial or material at the same time as he is immaterial and material.  The problem is that most theists don't think God can be defined by human terms.

3) The probability of the existence of a god complex enough to be able to create physical laws and constants is less likely than the probability of the physical laws and constants existing without a creator. As difficult as it is for some of you to believe that something as complex as the universe exists as it is without a creator, it is even a bigger leap to believe that something way more complex, a god that can manipulate the constants of the universe, exists without a creator.

The problem I think you're forgetting here is that somewhere in both factors is an eternal factor.  Whether matter is eternal or God is eternal, something has had to have been always there or starting things off or creating the beginning, whether it be something scientific or something supernatural.

In conclusion, using the concept of god as an explanatory factor for anything that happens in the universe creates more problems than it solves. Without a stated mechanism by which god does his miraculous deeds, using god as an explanation explains nothing. Immaterial beings have to have some interface by which to influence physical things. The question of how one gets an immaterial thing to influence a physical object is a lot more difficult than explaining whatever you need to explain without god. And finally, using a god to explain the origin of the universe just moves the questions back one step and makes the task even more difficult because now you have to account for something even more complex than the original question.

 
A lot of theists believe that god uses mechanisms, laws he's set in motion, to accomplish a lot of things.  To me, I can explain conception in both the mechanical terms and the supernatural terms, and who's to say you can't have both?


Just some thoughts I had when reading your post.  Very thought provoking.

Hueffenhardt:The construct of god as an explanation for anything causes more problems than it solves.

1) One has not given an explanation if one has not proposed a mechanism. Giving god credit for something leads to the illusion that one has offered a satisfactory explanation, when one has actually not said much of anything. To illustrate, allow me to use "gremlins" for the word "god".

Where did the matter/energy for the Big Bang come from? "Gremlins did it". It sounds like I gave an explanation, but I proposed no mechanism, so I never really answered the question or explained where the matter/energy came from. So the question still remains. Yet, some theists criticize atheists for not having a definitive answer for this question. My point is that theists don't have an answer either. "God" by itself is not an answer.

You’ve raised some thought-provoking points. I agree that theists criticize atheists for not having a definitive answer (perhaps not all, but many do).

If one sets aside (for a moment) the theist and the atheist perspectives, the question does indeed remain. What is the answer to the question of where did the matter/energy for the Big Bang come from? We don’t know. Of equal validity is the question, “Why did this extraordinarily complex and infinitely varied universe even come into existence in the first place?” No one knows.  

Atheists are aware of the universe and its genesis at the moment of the Big Bang, and conclude that the cosmos came into being strictly by chance. Their perspective is that there never has been a ‘spiritual force’/‘higher power’/‘infinite intelligence’ that caused the universe to start up, expand, and change over eons of time. 

Theists are aware of the universe and its genesis at the moment of the Big Bang, and have come to a very different conclusion. They’re aware of the seemingly infinite complexity of the universe and have concluded that a metaphysical force/power/intelligence initiated the process and has been aware of the expansion and evolution of the universe since its beginning. Many theists believe that 'God' is the fundamental 'watchmaker' of the universe. The term 'God', by the way, is a label for the purpose of this discussion, as is Gremlins, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc.

Atheists cannot prove that such a metaphysical force/power/intelligence (God?) does not exist. Theists cannot prove that ‘God’ does exist. We are left aware of unanswerable mysteries.

The universe is filled with mysterious phenomena that are beyond the ability of science to explain. The human psyche is a good example. We know that humans are fundamentally psychological ‘creatures’ who do a myriad of things for conscious and unconscious reasons. How did the psyche, an extraordinarily complex non-physical reality, come into existence? Has the human psyche evolved over time, or remained the same? We don't know, and probably never will.

Atheists are aware of the mysteries and cling to their perspective that they (the mysteries) have nothing to do with a metaphysical force/power/intelligence. Theists hold tight to their perspective that because ‘God’ is the fundamental force of the universe, ‘God’ is ultimately responsible for the human psyche (and other mysterious phenomena).  

I, for one, appreciate both perspectives.

beenthere:
Okay, I can see how you're saying that God isn't an answer can make sense.  But how is using God worse then what atheists use?  Neither can really be substantially proven.  To me, conceiving the existence of God takes just a stretch of the imagination as some of the other theories that explains things do. 

I'm not going to quote the whole thing because it's said just above.  But you leave out the fact that to many theists, God is in a realm of his own.  Therefore, he isn't immaterial or material at the same time as he is immaterial and material.  The problem is that most theists don't think God can be defined by human terms.

Scientists explain things by describing the mechanism. For example, how do sperm find the egg? The scientific explanation says that on the surface of the sperm there are receptor sites which we have observed. The egg releases chemicals that travel down the fallopian tubes and uterus. This is not theoretical, it has been observed. As the sperm moves around it discovers that the chemicals are strongest in the direction of the egg. It then swims in that direction until it finds the sperm.

Theists don't offer any such mechanism for how god does anything. That makes theism an inferior explanation. Futhermore, theists claim that we cannot make any observations of the mechanism god uses. Yet, another strike against god as an explanation is even theoretically one cannot create a sensible model of how something supernatural (it does not matter whether we are talking about another realm of existence or immaterial or whatever) can change the normal behavior of physical matter/energy. God as an explanation is vastly inferior to the explanations scientists give for things.

The inability to define god in "human terms" makes him incomprehensible and that makes for the sorriest of explanations and basically irrelevant. Take a look at ignosticism.

The problem I think you're forgetting here is that somewhere in both factors is an eternal factor.  Whether matter is eternal or God is eternal, something has had to have been always there ... whether it be something scientific or something supernatural.

Exactly. My point is that it is more improbable for god to exist eternally than for matter/energy to exist eternally without a god. Why? Because more complex things are less likely to exist spontaneously than more simple things, and god would have to be more complex than the universe he created.

A lot of theists believe that god uses mechanisms, laws he's set in motion, to accomplish a lot of things.  To me, I can explain conception in both the mechanical terms and the supernatural terms, and who's to say you can't have both?

When you say "laws he set in motion" it sounds like you believe in a "watchmaker god", one who set things up and then lets things run their course with absolutely no interference along the way. That model for all intents and purposes is indistinguishable from a model in which the universe just exists with those laws and things just run their course. The "watchmaker god" theory offers no explanatory advantage and seems to be an unnecessary complication to the natural theory that performs the same job.

OK, let's hear your explanation of conception in supernatural terms. Please be sure to tell us what difference this supernatural conception makes to the physical world (how can we detect that this supernatural conception ever took place?) If we cannot detect any noticible difference (i.e., we can't measure its effect) then for our lives it is as if it never happened and therefore irrelevant. However, if this supernatural conception does make a difference and thus we can measure it, please tell us how something supernatural made something natural happen.

Hueffenhardt:

OK, let's hear your explanation of conception in supernatural terms. Please be sure to tell us what difference this supernatural conception makes to the physical world (how can we detect that this supernatural conception ever took place?) If we cannot detect any noticible difference (i.e., we can't measure its effect) then for our lives it is as if it never happened and therefore irrelevant. However, if this supernatural conception does make a difference and thus we can measure it, please tell us how something supernatural made something natural happen.

I'm not quite a watchmaker god theist.  Yes, I believe he's created laws and rules and left certain things in motion. But I also still believe that he's in our everday lives.

As far as my conception theory goes, I do believe that it is still a natural process.  People who believe that you shouldn't use birth control because god will control when children come aren't using common sense.  If that were the case, there would be a whole hell of a lot less people on earth or children in situations they are in.  At least, IMO.  I do believe that God can cause things to happen for sterility and fertility.  Sometimes those things can be found out, i.e. hormone imbalances, drug abuse, etc.  Sometimes they can't and it remains a mystery to everyone.  I think with some of those, God has a supernatural hand in it and sometimes he's set down certain rules about abuse of our bodies and let's consequences happen.  And there's probably an explanation for sterility in everyone, we just don't have all the knowledge yet. 

Obviously, conception is a sperm meeting an egg.  Obviously, we can pinpoint all sorts of things that cause this.  Science can manipulate it in a lot of ways.  Heck, couples can even manipulate it, including influencing the sex.  So where's the supernaturalness of it all?  And how can we prove it?  The problem with the thought process you're presenting is that you're seperating the natural and the supernatural.  I'm not so sure that I do seperate them.  It's an amazing occurance.  We can see a lot of how it works.  We can manipulate it.  But does that mean that the invasion of the egg by the sperm and the subsequent cell formation all the way to a living, human being is not supernatural, just because we have natural explanations? 

And you're right, we can't measure the supernatural.  It's not something that can be proven.  That's part of the definition of supernatural.  I can't prove to you without a doubt that God created a soul for the body that he created and I can't prove to you that because it was God that created it, there was a difference in life.  It can't be done.  But does that mean that it doesn't exist?  You can't prove that, either.

CdnXMo:

If one sets aside (for a moment) the theist and the atheist perspectives, the question does indeed remain. What is the answer to the question of where did the matter/energy for the Big Bang come from? We don’t know. Of equal validity is the question, “Why did this extraordinarily complex and infinitely varied universe even come into existence in the first place?” No one knows. 

We agree that we do not know where the matter/energy for the Big Bang came from? Scientists do not stop there though, they continue to investigate. There are many possibilities, one being that it has always been, or it might have been created by a god. As to your other question of "why?" Why does there have to be a why? There might be a why, but I tend to think that there is no why, the universe just is. To have a why, some thinking being has to bestow a purpose. Since I believe no thinking being created this universe, no purpose was bestowed. Now, we can bestow a purpose, but it will be projecting a purpose onto the purposeless not discovering a purpose that was already there, if I am right.

Atheists are aware of the universe and its genesis at the moment of the Big Bang, and conclude that the cosmos came into being strictly by chance.

With all due respect, that is a lie, a tiresome lie, and I am sick and tired of theists laying that straw man at our feet for it does not reflect our position. Only a fool would think the galaxies and solar systems and the diversity of life could come about strictly by chance. The chances of all of that happening by pure chance are virtually non-existant. There are physical laws that act upon chance variations that organize energy into sub-atomic particles, into atoms, and molecules, into solids, and panets, and solar systems and galaxies, and life. These things would not happen to fall in the right alignment by chance, but when you have laws working upon them to bring these things about, then you have a workable model of how things came to be.

Their perspective is that there never has been a ‘spiritual force’/‘higher power’/‘infinite intelligence’ that caused the universe to start up, expand, and change over eons of time. 

Our perspective is that we are open to any workable hypothesis that can explain observable phenomenon. But, we will subject it to testing and see if new observations support the hypothesis, etc. We would accept a 'spiritual force' if anyone would ever define what what it is we are supposed to be looking for and how we can identify it when we find it and the mechanism by which it causes the changes people say it makes. Scientists treat the 'spiritual force' theory just as they would any other. The problem is the 'spiritual force' theory sucks because it is not defined or ready to be tested. As much as possible, we atheists and scientists don't like to assume a theory is true with no evidence, but that seems to be what theists are doing to the 'god of the gaps' theory.

Theists are aware of the universe and its genesis at the moment of the Big Bang, and have come to a very different conclusion. They’re aware of the seemingly infinite complexity of the universe and have concluded that a metaphysical force/power/intelligence initiated the process and has been aware of the expansion and evolution of the universe since its beginning. 

Atheists are equally aware of the complexity of the universe and believe it is a fallacy to conclude anything about the origins of the Big Bang right now especially that a metaphysical force initiated the process. We believe that it is wrong to jump to conclusions.

How did the psyche, an extraordinarily complex non-physical reality, come into existence? Has the human psyche evolved over time, or remained the same?

Now you are getting into my field. You have a hidden assumption in there that the psyche is non-physical. I tell you what, start a new thread on this and be specific on what you mean by the psyche and I'll tell you where the most current research is. In summary, I see no reason whatsoever to leave the natural world to explain the workings and functions of the mind.

Thank you for your response.

beenthere:
I'm not quite a watchmaker god theist.  Yes, I believe he's created laws and rules and left certain things in motion. But I also still believe that he's in our everday lives.

Thank you for being patient with me as I challenge you to move past vague notions and really think about what the words you are saying imply. Many of these theistic notions sound good at first, but once you look at them closely they end up being meaningless and unfeasible.

OK, so if you believe he is in our everyday lives, what does that mean? That god can change the natural course of events, that he can communicate with your brain while bypassing the sensory organs? That is what many theists believe, but here is the kicker, through what means (I'd even take a guess) does god influence the physical world? How does he get our neurons to fire when nothing in their environment is causing them to? How does he move mountains? And please don't say, "God works in mysterious ways. His ways are higher than our ways." Those are cop outs and are used to shut down thinking. The point that I am making is that he cannot. I think if people will actually think about it and not skip over the problem with a "God is incomprehensible" nonsense, they will see that if god uses physical forces, we will be able to detect them, and if he uses non-physical forces he will not be able to move physical things, and in any rate we would be able to observe irratically behaving neurons or mountains, etc, in which things move without an observable force, and we just don't see that.

Sometimes they can't and it remains a mystery to everyone.  I think with some of those, God has a supernatural hand in it and sometimes he's set down certain rules about abuse of our bodies and let's consequences happen.  And there's probably an explanation for sterility in everyone, we just don't have all the knowledge yet.

God of the gaps again. Why assume that this incomprehensible being that no one has any concrete evidence for is responsible for everything we haven't discovered, yet? It seriously makes as much sense as if I blamed unknown infertility on fugitshashmites (made up incomprehensible word). I mean why go there? There is nothing even to suggest that god or fugitshashmites are involved. I don't understand why some people are so uncomfortable with the unknown, so uncomfortable that when they don't have an answer they make up one and then firmly believe their made up answer is right.

The problem with the thought process you're presenting is that you're seperating the natural and the supernatural.  I'm not so sure that I do seperate them.  It's an amazing occurance.  We can see a lot of how it works.  We can manipulate it.

What does that really mean that you don't separate the natural and the supernatural? How are they the same? If they are truly the same, then everything is natural and we can do away with the whole supernatural idea. But, that would mean that we could through measurement detect the workings of god just like we do for every other force that affects us here. How can we see how the supernatural works? How can we manipulate it? If we can do those things we can prove that the supernatural exists.

But does that mean that the invasion of the egg by the sperm and the subsequent cell formation all the way to a living, human being is not supernatural, just because we have natural explanations?

I have always conceded that something supernatural could be happening in lockstep with the physical. But, we would have no way to detect it and if all it did was pretty much act like a shadow following the physical around and did nothing else, it is irrelevant to us because it contributes nothing. I am not trying to prove there is no supernatural. I am trying to show that it does not work as an explanation and it is superfluous and unnecessary and its inclusion makes a worse model of how the universe works than the model in which it is absent.


Supernaturalists often try to portray that naturalists and supernaturalists are in a draw since naturalists cannot prove that the supernatural does not exist and supernaturalists cannot prove that it does. But, it is not a draw. The positivists bears the burden of proof. There are a whole multitude of things we could imagine exist from fugitshashmites to leprachauns. But, is their likelihood of existing really equal to the likelihood that they don't exist when there is nothing even to suggest the possibility that they might be real? No, we cannot say with absolute certainty that they don't exist but there is no reason to even suspect that they do. The same goes for god and the supernatural. The presence of an unknown is not positive evidence for the existence of a god, especially when god is undefined.

The reason why we cannot prove that the supernatural does not exist is because it is nonfalsifiable. But, that is a weakness of the supernatural model, not a failure on our part. If you'd make some predictions of some observations that would be true only if the supernatural exists then we could test it and potentially falsify it.

When Albert Einstein created the general theory of relativity, his model predicted that light would bend around massive objects. So, scientists tested that theory to see if the light from distant stars bend when passing close to the sun. If they did not, the scientists could have falsified Einstein's theory, but the light did bend lending supporting evidence to his theory.

My plea is get specific about this supernatural, define your terms, explain how it works, and make some testable predictions, otherwise the hypothesis that the supernatural is responsible for the unknowns is as useless as my fugitshashmite theory.

Someone yells, “We just haven’t discovered it, yet”. Well, my friend, everything is happening naturally and normally according to the natural laws of physics. There is no evidence that the system is being acted upon. If god is physical then he is an actor in the physical universe and we should be able to detect him doing things that change the normal course things would follow

For what it is worth, goddidit is a slippery mental pathway that allows theists to continue onward and outward with their faith.  It's well- lubed, and an easy passage because the God of goddidit can do anything.  He is big enough to fill the expanse of the universe yet small enough to dwell in a man's heart, remember?  God is an impossible illogical concept that impossibly makes perfect logical sense for the theist.

Of course there is no evidence that the universe is being acted upon by a god.  God is clever and keeps himself hidden because he can do anything... especially remain undetected so as not to ruin our test of faith here on earth, get it?   ;)

beenthere:
Okay, I can see how you're saying that God isn't an answer can make sense.  But how is using God worse then what atheists use?  Neither can really be substantially proven.  To me, conceiving the existence of God takes just a stretch of the imagination as some of the other theories that explains things do. 

But one of the main points of the original post was that if there is no proof of a god, why concoct one up in the first place?  I mean, we only massage our minds with a god today on account of popular vote, meaning the masses think there is a god, and parental indoctrinationals to reinforce the next generation to think this way as well.  If we all had a fresh go at the world today and all the variant bullshit godtalk was eradicated and forgotten, I am talking clean slate here, how would a theist choose to think?  It's precisely because most humans are and remain uninformed that they default back to the position of goddidit.  The original poster posits that it is NOT necessary to go there anymore.  I totally agree.

If we got rid of god and still went to college to learn theories like Inflationary Universe, fractal modality, and other complicated explanations such as particle physics, Plank theory or quantum theory or entropy, soon enough one begins to honestly feel like maybe it is possible that all of "this" just popped into existence. 

Given enough time, the laws of probabillity dictate that much of the perceived "impossible" becomes possible.  That's how weird physics is.  Sooner or later we were destined to be.  If that is god, then so be it.  It certainly doesn't mean it's a bearded guy who will send me to some flaming hotspot so another redskinned sadistically evil twisted nutjob can stab me with a pitchfork for eternity.

But what do I know.  I am a total self-admitted hack who is severely pissed that I gave my brains over to an authoritarianesque religious institution and allowed them to think for me all those years.

Noggin

This is a superb thread… this kind of dialogue sharpens our minds and moves us forward in a way that “god is a mystery” conclusions simply cannot.

 

My two cents:

 

Burden of Proof.  I think it is critical to realize that the individual making the grand assertion is the one that has the burden of proof.  If a salesperson came to your door and asserted that he/she had a light bulb that would make you live 20 years longer if you chanted under it for 20 minutes a day, would you purchase the $5,000 bulb?  When met with such a great claim, most of us would demand strong evidence before accepting it.  That is, we would not believe in the bulb until the salesperson provided the evidence.   

 

I see the god question in a similar light (no pun intended).  If someone asserts that there is an invisible being that monitors my thoughts (along with billions of others) and intervenes in my life, that person has the obligation to provide the evidence of this existence.  I might add, that for me, this evidence must go beyond the “I’ve used the light bulb and I feel great” variety.

 

Mostly I just want to say thanks to this community for exposing my mind to this level of discussion.  Thank you for the time and thought you put into your posts. 

 

Jean Valjean

Hueffenhardt:The construct of god as an explanation for anything causes more problems than it solves.

1) One has not given an explanation if one has not proposed a mechanism. Giving god credit for something leads to the illusion that one has offered a satisfactory explanation, when one has actually not said much of anything. To illustrate, allow me to use "gremlins" for the word "god".

Where did the matter/energy for the Big Bang come from? "Gremlins did it". It sounds like I gave an explanation, but I proposed no mechanism, so I never really answered the question or explained where the matter/energy came from. So the question still remains. Yet, some theists criticize atheists for not having a definitive answer for this question. My point is that theists don't have an answer either. "God" by itself is not an answer. Where did god get the matter/energy from? "Oh, he is omnipotent so he can just do things like that". That is not an explanation. I could claim the same for Flying Spaghetti Monsters or Invisible Pink Unicorns.

2) Immaterial and material gods. People have many different concepts of god, so it makes showing the problems with god’s properties difficult, because not every theist believes he has such and such a property. But, allow me to address the problem immaterial beings have.

How does an immaterial being interact or have any influence on a material being? Being immaterial, god has no weight (i.e., no gravitational pull), no electrostatic charge (he can't touch or hold any material thing), no electro-magnetic waves (he is not light, cannot be seen, and cannot influence things that can be influenced by light), he has no molecules that can hold heat energy, etc. If he is immaterial, he has no physical force or energy with which to interact with the physical world. Mind powers don't cut it. How would an immaterial mind exert a physical force to move a planet, etc? What makes the physical world physical is that it responds to physical forces. And energy and light are physical. Remember E=mc^2? Matter/energy is one thing. Kinetic energy, heat, etc, are natural and part of the physical world.

By this point, some theists are saying, "OK, an immaterial god won't work because although we can dream of beings that can move physical objects with their mind, there is no mechanism to make it happen, so I changed my mind and now my god is a material god". So, now the problem is how does a material god do all the things people claim he does through natural means? And why haven’t physicists detected any physical forces of unknown origin doing everything from altering the rate at which neurons fire in human brains to stopping bullets from going through garments.

Look, a neuron does not fire unless the charge on the inside of neuron reaches -70 mV. Since we have already established that it would take some physical force to do that, why do we not find any out of place electrical charges targeting certain neurons so that God can give you a thought that you would not have had without his interference? That is just one issue. You name whatever you think god has done and tell me why we cannot find any trace of physical evidence that he did or is doing something.  

Someone yells, “We just haven’t discovered it, yet”. Well, my friend, everything is happening naturally and normally according to the natural laws of physics. There is no evidence that the system is being acted upon. If god is physical then he is an actor in the physical universe and we should be able to detect him doing things that change the normal course things would follow. Now, someone will bring up the strange behavior exhibited by sub-atomic particles in which quantum mechanics rules supreme. The strange behavior of mesons and such does not help the theist out. I am willing to show how it is not helpful if someone posits a coherent theory of how god uses quantum mechanics to answer prayers, etc. 

3) The probability of the existence of a god complex enough to be able to create physical laws and constants is less likely than the probability of the physical laws and constants existing without a creator. As difficult as it is for some of you to believe that something as complex as the universe exists as it is without a creator, it is even a bigger leap to believe that something way more complex, a god that can manipulate the constants of the universe, exists without a creator.

Now, Mormons believe god did have a creator, namely a father god, but this only moves the same question back a step and does nothing to solve the problem. You are attempting to solve the problem of how something complex can exist without a creator by supposing something even more complex existing without a creator. This does not prove that a god does not exist, because even highly improbable things can happen if given enough trials. But, it does make moot the argument for the existence of god due to the probabilities of the universe being the way it is without a creator. And you have made the whole matter worse by introducing a god whose existence and properties must be explained. 

In conclusion, using the concept of god as an explanatory factor for anything that happens in the universe creates more problems than it solves. Without a stated mechanism by which god does his miraculous deeds, using god as an explanation explains nothing. Immaterial beings have to have some interface by which to influence physical things. The question of how one gets an immaterial thing to influence a physical object is a lot more difficult than explaining whatever you need to explain without god. And finally, using a god to explain the origin of the universe just moves the questions back one step and makes the task even more difficult because now you have to account for something even more complex than the original question.

The general thrust of your post is logical - I believe that the question of God's existence is a non-question as there is no data on the subject either way.

However, careful about setting up strawmen.  There are questions for which we have data (we have lots of data about flying spaghetti monsters in bedrooms, that is we can see, hear, etc, in these rooms and yet we pick up no S.M) and then there are questions for which we have no data (what is the probability of an alien in the universe with a name pronounced 'Zelph' ? or what is the probability of a being, call it an Alien race, call it God, call it a flying tea-pot, which is responsible for triggering (again, in any way you wish to dream) our universe into existence ?  I would say that we have absolutely no data on these questions and thus they are effectively non-questions.  The atheist's blunder is too conclude that we do have data on these questions and then to posit a belief based on that (lack) of data.  It isn't that we can monitor the regions of potential-Gods / Aliens it is that we are totally void of data in the potential areas to look.

The dilemma is deep.  Consider the question of 'what started existence ?'.  Any answer is unsatisfactory.  In fact, our brains are not equipped to understand this.  We can't even understand hypotheses on the question let alone find proofs for those unsatisfactory hypothesis.

In the end, the only reason these non-questions have any relevance is because of their impact on us.  The will to believe in God is why this is not analagous to whether Zelph is out there or not.  Noone cares about Zelph.  Of course this is psychology - something to do with a being greater than this world.  Something almost romantic.  I think both Atheists and Theists would mistakenly interpret this fact, this 'desire to believe in something' or 'wishful thinking' as evidence of their own opinion.  It is only evidence of itself - the 'will to believe in God' and of nothing more.

I personally believe that we should judge adherents of abstract non-questions on their merits.  Give me a religion which encourages critical thinking, discovery, love, motivation, strength, courage, etc and I'll join it.  A religion (including Atheism) is to be judged on the merits.  Actually, Mormonism, given some of its early doctrines of seeking truth, etc, has many of the seeds of such a religion but it has been overwhelmed by the BY forces of info-control which always leads to less-critical thought and tolerance.  However, there is a power in religion, in believing in these random abstract non-questions and for that reason alone, because there is a power, it must be respected.

So let us judge each religion on its merits.  Fighting over who is right on non-questions is ridiculous, lets stick to the data.

Oh, forgot one thing.

The assertion that God as an explanation causes more problems than it solves is unfounded.  It is clear that some religion (some people's abstract notions) lead to behavior which is bad.  I'd lump category of Islam and parts of Christianity.  The bad part is the non-questioning that can occur, the control, the unfulfilled lives, etc.  But there is much good too.  Religion does provide comfort too many, regardless of anyones elitist opinion on the actual value of that comfort.  It provides purpose too many, again same thing.  It is possible that a lot of religion will lose its appeal as we get more and more confidence about the unknown through questioning and discovery but religion has played such an important role in *getting us through* the transition from beast to modern man.  It provided a much needed *drug* and may still be needed.  Whether that drug is a reflection of any truth or not is irrelevent.  It is very difficult to look at history and conclude that Religion is bad for it.  It may be expired (though I am not convinced of this) but definitely isn't bad.  If we do part ways, we should pay it its due respect.

Just look at a 14th century Cathedral in France.  Any power which can motivate destitute people to make that is to be respected and honored.

Ruski: Either I am not following you or you are not following me, because I fail to see the connection between our posts on this thread.

I am not writing about whether believing in a god can have benefits for some people. I agree with you that a belief in god can be beneficial and motivating and comforting to some.

This thread is about showing that using god as an explanation for some unexplained phenomena does not work and it makes a bigger mess than the original task of finding an actual explanation for the unexplained phenomena.

Several of your assertions about atheists in your first post are not characteristic of atheists. Anyway, I am just not following you.

Noggin and Jean Valjean: Thank you very much for your wonderful posts.

Hueffenhardt:
Thank you for being patient with me as I challenge you to move past vague notions and really think about what the words you are saying imply. Many of these theistic notions sound good at first, but once you look at them closely they end up being meaningless and unfeasible.

HH, thanks for being patient with ME.  Topics like this are exactly what I want and/or need right now.  I'm trying to think through my own thoughts on God and this really helps.  I just wish there was a theist who was more intellectual then me, more on your par, to help out.  But I'll sludge my way through it. 

OK, so if you believe he is in our everyday lives, what does that mean? That god can change the natural course of events, that he can communicate with your brain while bypassing the sensory organs? That is what many theists believe, but here is the kicker, through what means (I'd even take a guess) does god influence the physical world? How does he get our neurons to fire when nothing in their environment is causing them to? How does he move mountains? And please don't say, "God works in mysterious ways. His ways are higher than our ways." Those are cop outs and are used to shut down thinking. The point that I am making is that he cannot. I think if people will actually think about it and not skip over the problem with a "God is incomprehensible" nonsense, they will see that if god uses physical forces, we will be able to detect them, and if he uses non-physical forces he will not be able to move physical things, and in any rate we would be able to observe erratically behaving neurons or mountains, etc, in which things move without an observable force, and we just don't see that.

And I'm sure you're going to feel like you're beating your head against the wall....but, why can't he be incomprehensible?  Why can't it be a mystery?  You're wanting logic and facts, you're wanting everything spelled out for you, but what if there is something that can't be laid out for you?  Okay, so really, you're right. That makes no sense.  If it can't be laid out, if it can't be seen, if it can't be measured, how can you even tell it's there?  Faith is a BIG part of the God picture.  Once you have faith that God does exist, well, then you can start applying him to the natural stuff.  For the majority of people out there, their "proof" is looking at the world around them and marveling at it's wonder, and then deciding that it couldn't have been so beautiful on it's own, it had to have someone or something intelligent designing it.

The whole ball in the woods argument.  You're walking through a dense forest where it looks like no ones ever been there.  You see a glass ball, perfectly round.  The automatic assumption is that someone has been there before and dropped this ball.  Or you find a watch on top of a mountain.  That story is that atheists would come up with this whole natural explanation of how springs and cogs and stuff were somehow created by different winds and heat and came together to form a working watch.  A theist would say that something or someone has been there before.  The problem with both these "faith-building" stories is that a glass ball and a watch have to be made.  It's quite obvious that no where in the world have glass balls or watches ever popped into existence or been formed naturally in any sort of way.  But trees, mountains, plants, etc.....those have been formed.  We have evidence of that.  We can put a tree in our backyard, watch it grow and even see little trees sprout around it.  So those stories don't prove God at all, IMO.

I guess my (random) point here is that when you define God as an all-powerful God outside of time and everything that the Christian God is supposed to be, you can't define him and put him in a box.  You can't say well, if it's natural, then it can't be supernatural.  Not the way that God is defined.  That God can very well make every snowflake and place them, he can create each of the stars and manipulate light in such a way to make them seem like they're millions of years old.  He can heal someone miraculously and he can take someone prematurely.  He can do it all.  And people want Him to do it all.  They want to see someone overseeing everything, not only to thank and praise, but to blame it mysteriously on something else when they don't understand why something happened.  For those people, faith comes first before all else and they can look at something and to them, it's proof of God.  Even if they can be shown step by step how something can happen, they'll look at you, smile, and say "Isn't God great?"

Sometimes they can't and it remains a mystery to everyone.  I think with some of those, God has a supernatural hand in it and sometimes he's set down certain rules about abuse of our bodies and let's consequences happen.  And there's probably an explanation for sterility in everyone, we just don't have all the knowledge yet.

God of the gaps again. Why assume that this incomprehensible being that no one has any concrete evidence for is responsible for everything we haven't discovered, yet?

What I was trying to say, and not making much sense, even the times when we do know what's wrong it can be blamed on God in a theist mind. 

What does that really mean that you don't separate the natural and the supernatural? How are they the same? If they are truly the same, then everything is natural and we can do away with the whole supernatural idea. But, that would mean that we could through measurement detect the workings of god just like we do for every other force that affects us here. How can we see how the supernatural works? How can we manipulate it? If we can do those things we can prove that the supernatural exists.

We could do away with the whole supernatural idea in this world.  The problem is theists don't think this is the only realm of existence.  They believe in an after-life.  And they think that God is influential there as well as here.  The "there" is an all-spiritual realm and God influences everything in an obvious way.  But here, they think, His influence is more hidden, more subtle.  And really?  A lot believe it was meant to be that way.  You have to search for God.  You have to find Him.  The same way Jesus supposedly taught in parbles, to make people look for the answers and not have them just handed to them.

How can we see how the supernatural works?  Okay, I'm gonna try something and it may be just stupid but oh, well. 

Let's take love.  In a sense, that can be a supernatural power.  To theists, unconditional love truly is a supernatural power.  But even most atheists admit to the influence of love.  But what is love?  In reality, a lot of the affects of love have to do with preserving our species, our genetic line.  Makes some of us monogomous.  Makes us protect our offspring.  Procreates.  Right?  You can set up tests for love.  Put yourself in a situation where you will die saving someone you love.  If your love is strong enough, you'll do it.  It's a test of the influence of love.  How does it affect our lives? For some, love of self drives them.  They're whole lives are wrapped around doing things for their own happiness.  For some people, they live in absolute misery in order to make someone else happy.  That's love.  I know you're into psychology and things, and you know more then I know about this, but I know that there are parts of the brain that are stimulated by love.  You can see certain physical and chemical changes in the body when love happens, so to speak.

So can we measure the supernatural in the same way?  Can we measure the effect it has on people's lives?  Those who dedicate their lives to God.  Missionaries, priests and nuns, those kind of people.  A lot of them live their lives contrary to evolutionary pulls in the name of God.  There are hormones that are released in response to what some people call experiences with God.  One of those responses is the "burning in the bosom."  There are people who die for God.

That's really the only test that's plausible and I know it's full of holes.  After all, we humans are quite adept at tricking ourselves into believing things, and our own self-awareness can cause us to do a lot of things that aren't in our or our species best interest, based on belief.

Supernaturalists often try to portray that naturalists and supernaturalists are in a draw since naturalists cannot prove that the supernatural does not exist and supernaturalists cannot prove that it does. But, it is not a draw. The positivists bears the burden of proof.

I agree.

There are a whole multitude of things we could imagine exist from fugitshashmites to leprechauns. But, is their likelihood of existing really equal to the likelihood that they don't exist when there is nothing even to suggest the possibility that they might be real? No, we cannot say with absolute certainty that they don't exist but there is no reason to even suspect that they do. The same goes for god and the supernatural. The presence of an unknown is not positive evidence for the existence of a god, especially when god is undefined.

The difference, for me, between leprechauns and God is that there's more at stake if God is real then there is if leprechauns are real. To me, God is not something to be tossed out lightly because if He is true, and if the other aspects of Christianity are true, well, then, I better get in line if I don't want to be in a horrible place after I die.  That, to me, is the reason why I'm looking at it very careful.  I don't want to make mistakes with that.  Sure, it may seem simple or stupid, but if mormonism was the path to eternal happiness, I would.  (However, I have already proved mormonism wrong without a doubt in my mind.)  I would love to not believe in God.  I can see how freeing it would be.  Sure, we can go around arguing whether the Flying Spaghetti Monster is real or not, but in my mind, it's irrelevant.  God isn't.  Whether He exists or not is a real question to me, one that I concern myself with very much and it's going to take a lot to prove to myself that He doesn't exist, if for no other reason then that I don't want to make a mistake.  My husband is a skeptic, but even he still falls back on faith.  Maybe that's all there is too it.  I don't know. 

The reason why we cannot prove that the supernatural does not exist is because it is nonfalsifiable. But, that is a weakness of the supernatural model, not a failure on our part. If you'd make some predictions of some observations that would be true only if the supernatural exists then we could test it and potentially falsify it.

You can test love and you can test the supernatural on the theories I stated above because of the human factor.  It's something we do understand and can test.  But I don't see any way we can predict anything that the supernatural would do to prove.  Almost any deist you put some sort of a test like that in front of would always fall back on, "Well, we can't test God..."  In the Bible days, there were tests.  People struck dumb, that sort of thing.  I've heard of things like that still today.  DH's BIL is a pastor in Madagascar and claims he regularly removes demons from people (can't remember the word for it).  He claims to see a lot of Biblical-type proofs of God's existence.  I personally haven't. 

I probably haven't even answered any of your questions.  Sorry.

This is a very thought provoking thread and I have a few thoughts of my own that I would like to add.  It is late however, and I need to get to bed so I have just one comment that I would like the in giving my 2 cents worth.

Many people believe that a god is necessary for all the complex things they see around them in the natural world and feel that there must be a supreme creator that exists in order to have made these complex things happen.  My question is, if there is a god, then where did he/she/it come from and does if this argument for a god holds true then there must then be an argument for a god or supreme creator above that god and so on and so on........to infinity?   How does one accept that as possible or begin to comprehend something that has no beginning?

Just something to think about. 

Jean Valjean:

Burden of Proof.  I think it is critical to realize that the individual making the grand assertion is the one that has the burden of proof.  If a salesperson came to your door and asserted that he/she had a light bulb that would make you live 20 years longer if you chanted under it for 20 minutes a day, would you purchase the $5,000 bulb?  When met with such a great claim, most of us would demand strong evidence before accepting it.  That is, we would not believe in the bulb until the salesperson provided the evidence.   

 

I see the god question in a similar light (no pun intended).  If someone asserts that there is an invisible being that monitors my thoughts (along with billions of others) and intervenes in my life, that person has the obligation to provide the evidence of this existence.  I might add, that for me, this evidence must go beyond the “I’ve used the light bulb and I feel great” variety.

Herein lies the great question for me.  If theists and atheists alike will require proof of the light bulb salesperson of your example, why then do the theists not ask for such proof of God while the atheists do?  Asked another way, how can there be so many theists in the world when there isn't a single shred of evidence to support their belief in the supernatural?

Curiously, I have often heard theists posit the argument (as I must admit I did when I was a theist) that the near universality of such a belief is precisely the proof thus sought.  The rationalization usually proceeds along these lines: For so many to believe in that which has no proof, such a belief must be intrinsic to human nature; in other words we have been “programmed” to believe in God, or at least in divinity of some sort or another.  For this programming to exist, God must have put it there.

On the surface, it sounds like logical reasoning.  Dig deeper, however, and one finds that the crux of the argument, the last sentence in the preceeding paragraph, is in fact a non sequitur.  “Programming”—or shall we say a genetic predilection—of this kind need not come from God.  One of the more fascinating (in my opinion) conclusions of the biological sciences since the adoption of Darwinistic evolution as an explanatory framework is that adaptations incorporated into a particular species’ genome in order to effect some particular end may also have unintended consequences.

Let us consider, for example, the plight of our hominid ancestors.  Imagine an individual from the Australopithecus afarensis species searching for food when suddenly he or she hears a rustling in the tall grass behind.  This individual has but a split second to decide if the rustling represents a danger or not.  There is no time to gather evidence—if the rustling is from a preditor, it could easily pounce in the time it takes to turn around and look.  The decision to run or stay must therefore be made on assumption.  Which assumption, then, is safest?  If one assumes that the rustling is merely the wind but it turns out to be a preditor, our poor ancestor is dead.  If, on the other hand, one assumes that the rustling is caused by an agent—something that moves of its own volition—and quickly runs away, our ancestor stays alive whether the rustling is from a preditor or just the wind.  Thus a gene which predisposes us to assume that all phenomena which cannot immediately be explained are caused by some undefined agent aids our flight from preditors and by extension our chances for survival.

This “agent assumption” also explains theism and its widespread appeal.  Whenever we encounter something we cannot immediately explain—say the death of a loved one—we are genetically predisposed to think that it must have been caused by some sort of agent.  As human intelligence grew through evolution, the human ability to explain causes also grew making that which could not be explained all the more puzzling.  As the unexplained became more puzzling, our agent assumption caused our ancestors to attribute more and more “magic” to deities of all kinds in order to explain that which could not be understood.  Thus we see the evolution of both man and God.

Fortunately, humans above all other species on Earth, are capable of overcoming their biological imperatives.  I urge you therefore, my theist friends, to scrutinize carefully your belief in the supernatural.  Does it really make sense?  Does it really add to your understanding of the Universe?  Or are you simply allowing your agent assumption genes to control your beliefs?

Hueffenhardt:Ruski: Either I am not following you or you are not following me, because I fail to see the connection between our posts on this thread.

I am not writing about whether believing in a god can have benefits for some people. I agree with you that a belief in god can be beneficial and motivating and comforting to some.

This thread is about showing that using god as an explanation for some unexplained phenomena does not work and it makes a bigger mess than the original task of finding an actual explanation for the unexplained phenomena.

Several of your assertions about atheists in your first post are not characteristic of atheists. Anyway, I am just not following you.

Noggin and Jean Valjean: Thank you very much for your wonderful posts.

From the the standpoint of discovery of the natural world, the posit of God in and of itself does not make the world less tractable as your original post suggests.  This is like saying that If I believe that there are 3 legged dogs in a 6th dimension that now it will be harder for us to understand the natural world because we will have to explain how the mutant dogs got there.  No explanations and dreamed up explanations on questions for which there presently is no data are equally absent of naturalistic explanatory power.  Note that on questions for which there IS data, this does not hold and dogmas may quickly start to hinder progress.

I suggest rereading the posts if you didn't understand.  I would argue that when discussing questions for which there is no data, the only meaningful topic is how belief in those questions influences the believer.  Anything else is moot.

Please be specific about which assertions about atheists are incorrect ?

stemmetje:

Jean Valjean:

Burden of Proof.  I think it is critical to realize that the individual making the grand assertion is the one that has the burden of proof.  If a salesperson came to your door and asserted that he/she had a light bulb that would make you live 20 years longer if you chanted under it for 20 minutes a day, would you purchase the $5,000 bulb?  When met with such a great claim, most of us would demand strong evidence before accepting it.  That is, we would not believe in the bulb until the salesperson provided the evidence.   

 

I see the god question in a similar light (no pun intended).  If someone asserts that there is an invisible being that monitors my thoughts (along with billions of others) and intervenes in my life, that person has the obligation to provide the evidence of this existence.  I might add, that for me, this evidence must go beyond the “I’ve used the light bulb and I feel great” variety.

Herein lies the great question for me.  If theists and atheists alike will require proof of the light bulb salesperson of your example, why then do the theists not ask for such proof of God while the atheists do?  Asked another way, how can there be so many theists in the world when there isn't a single shred of evidence to support their belief in the supernatural?

Curiously, I have often heard theists posit the argument (as I must admit I did when I was a theist) that the near universality of such a belief is precisely the proof thus sought.  The rationalization usually proceeds along these lines: For so many to believe in that which has no proof, such a belief must be intrinsic to human nature; in other words we have been “programmed” to believe in God, or at least in divinity of some sort or another.  For this programming to exist, God must have put it there.

On the surface, it sounds like logical reasoning.  Dig deeper, however, and one finds that the crux of the argument, the last sentence in the preceeding paragraph, is in fact a non sequitur.  “Programming”—or shall we say a genetic predilection—of this kind need not come from God.  One of the more fascinating (in my opinion) conclusions of the biological sciences since the adoption of Darwinistic evolution as an explanatory framework is that adaptations incorporated into a particular species’ genome in order to effect some particular end may also have unintended consequences.

Let us consider, for example, the plight of our hominid ancestors.  Imagine an individual from the Australopithecus afarensis species searching for food when suddenly he or she hears a rustling in the tall grass behind.  This individual has but a split second to decide if the rustling represents a danger or not.  There is no time to gather evidence—if the rustling is from a preditor, it could easily pounce in the time it takes to turn around and look.  The decision to run or stay must therefore be made on assumption.  Which assumption, then, is safest?  If one assumes that the rustling is merely the wind but it turns out to be a preditor, our poor ancestor is dead.  If, on the other hand, one assumes that the rustling is caused by an agent—something that moves of its own volition—and quickly runs away, our ancestor stays alive whether the rustling is from a preditor or just the wind.  Thus a gene which predisposes us to assume that all phenomena which cannot immediately be explained are caused by some undefined agent aids our flight from preditors and by extension our chances for survival.

This “agent assumption” also explains theism and its widespread appeal.  Whenever we encounter something we cannot immediately explain—say the death of a loved one—we are genetically predisposed to think that it must have been caused by some sort of agent.  As human intelligence grew through evolution, the human ability to explain causes also grew making that which could not be explained all the more puzzling.  As the unexplained became more puzzling, our agent assumption caused our ancestors to attribute more and more “magic” to deities of all kinds in order to explain that which could not be understood.  Thus we see the evolution of both man and God.

Fortunately, humans above all other species on Earth, are capable of overcoming their biological imperatives.  I urge you therefore, my theist friends, to scrutinize carefully your belief in the supernatural.  Does it really make sense?  Does it really add to your understanding of the Universe?  Or are you simply allowing your agent assumption genes to control your beliefs?

I liked the post.  However, such stories represent Atheist sunday school.  I can concoct my own story (note I am not theist).

In our evolution, humans faced the unknown and much danger in the form of wild animals, poor climate conditions, etc.  The evolving man who did not explore their unknown (your rustling leaves) was less favored than the curious man since the man who did explore found out where the beasts are concentrated, where the best hunting lands were, etc.  In fact it was curiosity that was favored in evolution, not complacency and supernaturalistic explanations.  Those groups which refused to discover, to question the unknown, remained in less-optimal circumstances.  I can come up with any evolutionary explanation for any behavior if you provide me with the ideology to defend.

Be careful with Dawkin's evolutionary conjectures.  The possibilities are as vast as the Gods!

Great post! 

 

Stemmetje

I have wrestled with this question as well.  After numerous conversations with family and friends still within the Mormon mind machine, it seems clear that people are simply not rational beings.  We view ourselves as rational.  We try to be rational.  However, our minds are limited in the way that we process information.  Theories that try to explain behavior in my field have advanced in our field when they have loosened the “people are rational cognitive beings” assumption and accepted the emotional, cultural, heuristic, and bounded nature of how people behave. 

 

Ruski and Stemmetje

I agree with both of you. (is that possible?).  Ruski, you make a good point about the dangers of evolutionary reasoning.  It is all post hoc and therefore there are numerous stories that could be told.  I would, however, assert, that such stories can still be evaluated as to their merit in explaining our observations.  For example, Stemmetje brought up the “agent principle” that suggests that our persistent beliefs in god(s) stem in part from an survival advantage given to those who assumed that an agent was responsible for stimuli.  Yes, ruski, this is just one story, and the evolutionary causality is very difficult to judge.  However, I would say that this “story” is consistent with research in my field, the organization sciences, that clearly illustrates two phenomena.  First, when attributing performance to causes, individuals tend to overestimate the extent to which a leader is responsible for the outcome (as opposed to cultural, situational, or idiosyncratic factors).  Second, individuals are generally adverse to risk and uncertainty, and therefore, seek out ways to reduce the uncertainty in their environment.  I would assert that these findings are consistent with the “agent principle”.  Certainly, they are also consistent with other theories, and it is the job of scientists to try to evaluate all the evidence for each. 

 

Ruski.

I love your post and can’t comment on all your good points, but I will ask about your view on the French Cathedral.  I served a mission in Italy and saw my fair share of the Duomi there.  They are certainly marvelous structures that are a tribute to the effort and ingenuity of people.  But can’t they also be seen in another light?  Specifically, what was the opportunity cost of building them?  How else might the time, resources, effort, and lives of people been spent?  The work on the SL temple is equally guilty.  Yes, there are benefits accrued.  But there are also costs.  In my opinion, just because I can convince someone that going to the temple every day for 10 years is the best thing they can do in the twilight of their life doesn’t mean it is. 

 

That being said, I agree with your points about the role that religion has played in history.  It has given some level of hope to people living in horrible circumstances.  It should also be noted, however, that the horror of the circumstances from which religion helped them escape has been improved more by the scientific world view than by the religious one.  This is speculative, but it is almost like the religion gives some relief from pain with a drug, and science (using the term broadly) eliminates the source of the pain.

 

Finally, I cringe a bit when you say that there isn’t any data on the god question.  Perhaps I’m trapped within a scientific paradigm, but if someone presents a theory that defines a construct in such as way that it is not way can be observed, its impact cannot be assessed, and no falsifiable hypotheses can be formulated about its existence, then I’m looking at a very bad theory.  We reject such theories in scientific disciplines because they don’t allow us to learn anything.  So, while technically, god can be defined in such a way as to free him from any data, by so doing he is simultaneously freed from relevance. 

 

Beenthere.

I appreciate your post because it reflects how my thoughts go back and forth on these big questions.  Your point about testing love is a good one. Ultimately, the question of IS an empirical question or it is a question of faith.  Either you have reasons for why you believe what you do, or you don’t.  I don’t have a problem when faithful people will admit that they believe on faith.  My gripe is when people take a faith claim and treat it as if it is an empirically justified fact.  It is not justified, my friend.  While they can claim the right to believe in a god that hasn’t been proven to NOT be there, they cannot simultaneously claim that such a belief is anything more than faith. 

 

That’s enough from me.  I love your minds, friends, this is great!

 

Jean Valjean

 

This is probably an over-simplification, but to me, the main difference between Athiests and theists is where they place their faith in the mysteries of the universe.  Athiests, from what I can see, place much of their faith in science.  Theists however use a diety as the repository for their faith. 

Further, it also seems that both camps are just as vocal about it.  The theists damn the athiests to hell, damnation, or the like.  Athiests decry the ignorance and blindness of the theist.  I know it's naive of me to ask, but why can't we all just agree to dissagree?

Jason The Mason:
 Athiests, from what I can see, place much of their faith in science. 

I can't agree with that. It's not a matter of faith in science its a matter of fact that science has proven to be the best tool we have to figure out this world we live in. One by one, things that were once attributed to God have been figured out by science.

Jeff Ricks:

Jason The Mason:
 Athiests, from what I can see, place much of their faith in science. 

One by one, things that were once attributed to God have been figured out by science.

I'm speaking specifically to the things that haven't been proven yet.  The faith, (or "trust" if you want to move away from religiously related words) is that science will eventually explain these things.

Jean Valjean:

Great post! 

 

Stemmetje

I have wrestled with this question as well.  After numerous conversations with family and friends still within the Mormon mind machine, it seems clear that people are simply not rational beings.  We view ourselves as rational.  We try to be rational.  However, our minds are limited in the way that we process information.  Theories that try to explain behavior in my field have advanced in our field when they have loosened the “people are rational cognitive beings” assumption and accepted the emotional, cultural, heuristic, and bounded nature of how people behave. 

 

Ruski and Stemmetje

I agree with both of you. (is that possible?).  Ruski, you make a good point about the dangers of evolutionary reasoning.  It is all post hoc and therefore there are numerous stories that could be told.  I would, however, assert, that such stories can still be evaluated as to their merit in explaining our observations.  For example, Stemmetje brought up the “agent principle” that suggests that our persistent beliefs in god(s) stem in part from an survival advantage given to those who assumed that an agent was responsible for stimuli.  Yes, ruski, this is just one story, and the evolutionary causality is very difficult to judge.  However, I would say that this “story” is consistent with research in my field, the organization sciences, that clearly illustrates two phenomena.  First, when attributing performance to causes, individuals tend to overestimate the extent to which a leader is responsible for the outcome (as opposed to cultural, situational, or idiosyncratic factors).  Second, individuals are generally adverse to risk and uncertainty, and therefore, seek out ways to reduce the uncertainty in their environment.  I would assert that these findings are consistent with the “agent principle”.  Certainly, they are also consistent with other theories, and it is the job of scientists to try to evaluate all the evidence for each. 

 

Ruski.

I love your post and can’t comment on all your good points, but I will ask about your view on the French Cathedral.  I served a mission in Italy and saw my fair share of the Duomi there.  They are certainly marvelous structures that are a tribute to the effort and ingenuity of people.  But can’t they also be seen in another light?  Specifically, what was the opportunity cost of building them?  How else might the time, resources, effort, and lives of people been spent?  The work on the SL temple is equally guilty.  Yes, there are benefits accrued.  But there are also costs.  In my opinion, just because I can convince someone that going to the temple every day for 10 years is the best thing they can do in the twilight of their life doesn’t mean it is. 

 

That being said, I agree with your points about the role that religion has played in history.  It has given some level of hope to people living in horrible circumstances.  It should also be noted, however, that the horror of the circumstances from which religion helped them escape has been improved more by the scientific world view than by the religious one.  This is speculative, but it is almost like the religion gives some relief from pain with a drug, and science (using the term broadly) eliminates the source of the pain.

 

Finally, I cringe a bit when you say that there isn’t any data on the god question.  Perhaps I’m trapped within a scientific paradigm, but if someone presents a theory that defines a construct in such as way that it is not way can be observed, its impact cannot be assessed, and no falsifiable hypotheses can be formulated about its existence, then I’m looking at a very bad theory.  We reject such theories in scientific disciplines because they don’t allow us to learn anything.  So, while technically, god can be defined in such a way as to free him from any data, by so doing he is simultaneously freed from relevance. 

 

Beenthere.

I appreciate your post because it reflects how my thoughts go back and forth on these big questions.  Your point about testing love is a good one. Ultimately, the question of IS an empirical question or it is a question of faith.  Either you have reasons for why you believe what you do, or you don’t.  I don’t have a problem when faithful people will admit that they believe on faith.  My gripe is when people take a faith claim and treat it as if it is an empirically justified fact.  It is not justified, my friend.  While they can claim the right to believe in a god that hasn’t been proven to NOT be there, they cannot simultaneously claim that such a belief is anything more than faith. 

 

That’s enough from me.  I love your minds, friends, this is great!

 

Jean Valjean

 

Nice post Valjean - you remind me of the actual Valjearn (in terms of presentation)...

I like the two findings you mentioned (leadership emphasis and uncertainty aversion) - I think they are completely accurate.  However, that they are consistent with one or another post hoc evolutionary tale doesn't lend credence to the tale, in my opinion.  That we tend to blame the leader could be rationalized by both theist and atheist to support their respective ideologies.  My point isn't to damn these findings or theories, they are facinating, useful and with research, etc, hopefully we can solidify them.  But I do not see how they lend any information on the question of a deity.  We tend to get overconfident about the scope of conclusions.

You say that the God theory is essentially a 'very bad theory' as there is no data and I agree with you 100%.  In fact, it is totally useless in terms of IDing any sort of truth about the universe.   But so called truth is not the only part of the human experience - we like to dream.

In our hatred of uncertainty, we do tend to strive to make conclusions about things for which there is no data and God isn't safe from this either.  Hence, for this meaningless scientific question, we say that no data means no God (or very low probability).  You seem to be emphasizing definitions and I agree that here we need to be careful.  There is data on specific conceptions of God (some conceptions have more data than others).  But proving that many specific conceptions (if not all) of God are wrong doesn't disprove God.  The only relevant conclusion which can be made is the yearning for God, which we have already addressed.

I like your metaphor of drug vs. actual healing of the sickness and for much of religion and science I think this is right on.

As for the cathedrals in France, again I appreciate your reasoning on opportunity cost.  Beauty isn't a zero sum game, in my opinion.  French economic conditions at that time were no better than for a thousand years and definitely not better than some of the advanced mesopatamia civs, rome, etc and yet they created something more beautiful than almost anything since or before it.  Religion made a lot of passion - passion which fought wars, built cathedrals, lifted morals (and sometimes lowered them), etc.  The point is, is that it was a catalyst of human energy.  It has often been the great motivating force for countless great, and not so great, people.  I reverence it for that.

In short, I believe that it is fine for a person to believe in any theory beyond the realm of reliable science as long as they are: (a) willing to realize that their belief is based on groundless faith and they will pursue knowledge in that area regardless of the results. (b) willing to revise their beliefs continually based on new evidence. (c) their belief is net beneficial to themselves and others. In the end the difference between the atheist / deist and true agnostic is when the hypothesis comes (before or after the experiment). Let's say I discover a new technology which can scan the farthest galaxy for intelligent life. It will take 10 years for the experiment to take place. The 'atheist on life's existence' would say there is no life during the 10 years of waiting (or would say that the probability is really low[as if they know it ]. The 'theist' on life's existence' would say that there is life during the 10 years of waiting. Or you could flip it around, it doesn't matter. Perhaps you see why I think the position is irrelevant. This is not speaking to any truth. For me, I would judge either position based on the merits of what it brings to the believer. If believing that there is life out there excited the theist, why shouldn't they believe in it ? If the atheist loves the idea of being alone, why shouldn't they believe in their position ? It really has to do with the value of the belief to the believer when talking about questions for which there is no data.

Jason The Mason:

Jeff Ricks:

Jason The Mason:
 Athiests, from what I can see, place much of their faith in science. 

One by one, things that were once attributed to God have been figured out by science.

I'm speaking specifically to the things that haven't been proven yet.  The faith, (or "trust" if you want to move away from religiously related words) is that science will eventually explain these things.

Okay, but it's a trust based on the very good track record that science has. One by one, things that were once attributed to God have been figured out by science and by the same token, one by one, religion/theism has had to give up claims that science has shown are not true. Never has that worked the other way.

Religion/theism's track has not been so good when compared with science. By the way, religion/theism usually has given up those claims, kicking and screaming every inch of the way.

So, based on the track record of both I'd say trust in science is a well founded trust. Trust in religion is a bit tenuous at best. Again, I'm saying, based on their track records.

Jason The Mason:This is probably an over-simplification, but to me, the main difference between Athiests and theists is where they place their faith in the mysteries of the universe.  Athiests, from what I can see, place much of their faith in science.  Theists however use a diety as the repository for their faith. 

Further, it also seems that both camps are just as vocal about it.  The theists damn the athiests to hell, damnation, or the like.  Athiests decry the ignorance and blindness of the theist.  I know it's naive of me to ask, but why can't we all just agree to dissagree?

Good question Jason.

I suppose you could argue that any action is based on presuppositions, and therefore a type of “faith”.  I do not think you can argue, however, that the “faith” of a scientist and the “faith” of a believer are the same.  The “faith” of the scientist is validated literally millions of times a day as the laws that govern the universe are discovered, used in technology, and better understood.  This is a public, observable, replicable, and falsifiability validation.  The faith of the believer (I’m also speaking generally here) rests on historical events, personal experiences, and tradition.  The reason science is a sound basis for a world view is because it is self-correcting due to the falsifiability principle.  Religious faith is less self-correcting due to its emphasis of belief without evidence.

 

So yes, both atheists and believers put “trust” in key epistemological principles, and in that they are similar.  I do not believe, however, that the epistemological principles of each are equally useful at understanding reality and solving the worlds problems.  In order for any of us to work together, we must share, to a certain extent, a view of reality.  Science aids us in determining that shared view of reality, religion, IMHO acts as a barrier to that shared view.  When each party holds their position to be superior independent of any demonstrable evidence then the primary basis for compromise is lost.

 

Jean Vajean

Jason The Mason:This is probably an over-simplification, but to me, the main difference between Athiests and theists is where they place their faith in the mysteries of the universe.  Athiests, from what I can see, place much of their faith in science.  Theists however use a diety as the repository for their faith. 

I think, generally, a great amount of time could be spent studying what humans actually know, how we know it, and establishing to what degree of certainty we justify declaring that we know anything at all.  In fact, I suggest that we owe it to humanity to take this course of study somewhere as a required high school credit.  It is also my opinion that most of those who do not engage in the struggle to challenge what we humans hold as sacred and unquestioned might be lazy, probably are fearful, and definitely are assuaging themselves to live in a false reality.

I personally am baffled with the human who seriously studies the concept of epistemology and still chooses to say that they know anything whatsoever for certain about god.

To me, that person is completely and utterly intellectually dishonest.

It is only by virtue of scientifially testing verifiable experiments and applying these known outcomes carefully on a case by calculated case basis that any sort of reliable world view can be constructed at all. 

And, pardon, but given the choice, why would anyone want to form their world view on anything less than this?

Noggin

Ruski,

 

You are clearly the kind of person that I could talk to for a looong time… and learn a lot!  Thanks for posting.

 

I agree with you that the two research findings that I pointed out should not be seen as tests of the “agent principle” theory.  Far from it.  My point was only that they are consistent with it.  In my view, a theory that has a few distal data points that are consistent with its predictions is superior to a theory for which there is not data for or against.  I think we really agree on this point.

 

I like your point about liking to dream.  The experience of being human goes beyond the cognitive, and I, like all of us, like the various thrills and joys that life brings.  I feel overwhelmed with love for my children almost on a daily basis.  It is a transcendent experience.  In that moment, I am not viewing the experience as a pattern of synaptic firings, but I’m experiencing it as love and devotion.  So, there probably must be a distinction between experience that are lived for their own sake and experiences that are taken as evidence of some external reality. 

 

I’m trying to wrap my mind around your perspectives on the cathedrals.  I think you are using an “hypothetical imperative” framework” (the sacrifice is justified by the beauty) and I am using a “categorical imperative” framework (the sacrifice was wrong).  This is an area of ethics that I need to explore further, as it is not always clear to me when each imperative should rule the day.  This has great relevance to our reactions to the LDS church.  When I find out the church is based on a lie, I leave because lying is categorically wrong.  When others find out the church is a lie they stay, because it is a good way to raise children.  I think that in this ethical distinction is found a lot of the grey we experience in life.

 

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative

 

24601

 

Jean Vajean

I personally am baffled with the human who seriously studies the concept of epistemology and still chooses to say that they know anything whatsoever for certain about god.
To me, that person is completely and utterly intellectually dishonest.
Noggin

Good point Noggin.  I think we are all pulled towards wanting more certainty than we really have.  That biase would lead us to be more sure that god is, or is not, there then we really should be.

Personally, I think the word "god" should be done away with.  It has 1,000,000 different definitions and leads to more confusion than communication. 

Jean Vajean

Jason The Mason:
Further, it also seems that both camps are just as vocal about it.  The theists damn the athiests to hell, damnation, or the like.  Athiests decry the ignorance and blindness of the theist.  I know it's naive of me to ask, but why can't we all just agree to dissagree?

Well, why we're out it, why don't we just agree to disagree with mormons?  Live and let live!

The problem with that is that if athiests are wrong, a whole lot of them are going to hell.  Theists want to prevent that.  And if theists are wrong, a whole lot of them are living their lives for the wrong reasons and spreading lies.  Athiests want to prevent that.  I would hope that no one's reasoning is so set in stone that they wouldn't be open-minded to hear others out in one aspect and to question their own beliefs in the other aspect.

beenthere: I may be wrong, but I understand your post to assume that if God exists he will punish atheists (send them to hell) while *blessing* theists. I suggest reading some critiques of Pascal's wager to see the folly of this false dichotomy. For example, perhaps God is one who will reward skepticism, inquiry, etc. (Agnostics will rule the day )

Jean Valjean:

Ruski,

 

You are clearly the kind of person that I could talk to for a looong time… and learn a lot!  Thanks for posting.

 

I agree with you that the two research findings that I pointed out should not be seen as tests of the “agent principle” theory.  Far from it.  My point was only that they are consistent with it.  In my view, a theory that has a few distal data points that are consistent with its predictions is superior to a theory for which there is not data for or against.  I think we really agree on this point.

 

I like your point about liking to dream.  The experience of being human goes beyond the cognitive, and I, like all of us, like the various thrills and joys that life brings.  I feel overwhelmed with love for my children almost on a daily basis.  It is a transcendent experience.  In that moment, I am not viewing the experience as a pattern of synaptic firings, but I’m experiencing it as love and devotion.  So, there probably must be a distinction between experience that are lived for their own sake and experiences that are taken as evidence of some external reality. 

 

I’m trying to wrap my mind around your perspectives on the cathedrals.  I think you are using an “hypothetical imperative” framework” (the sacrifice is justified by the beauty) and I am using a “categorical imperative” framework (the sacrifice was wrong).  This is an area of ethics that I need to explore further, as it is not always clear to me when each imperative should rule the day.  This has great relevance to our reactions to the LDS church.  When I find out the church is based on a lie, I leave because lying is categorically wrong.  When others find out the church is a lie they stay, because it is a good way to raise children.  I think that in this ethical distinction is found a lot of the grey we experience in life.

 

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative

 

24601

 

Jean Vajean

24601: We do agree on the research findings are consistent and they do represent data points for the question of "why humans yearn to believe in God."  I think the question is facinating and such research beautiful.  My only hesitation is the jump from that question to "well, if we can show that people believe in God for psychological reasons [a position which I may somewhat dogmatically accept] it means that there is no God."  In fact what it does is undercuts a groups claim on their conception of God as it provides an alternative theory for why they came to that conclusion (the will to believe).  But I don't need evolutionary theory to tell me that (though the stories are amusing) - I can just look at the hundreds of conflicting versions of God out there and at best claim, assuming God's existence, that there is a 1/1000 (for point's sake will assume 1000 conflicting versions) of a particular claimant being right.

On cathedrals: I think we may hold similar moral positions but simply potentially weigh costs differently.  I am not qualified to talk about the ethics of when a sacrifice is worth the result - the whole means justifying the ends.  However, I do not believe that opportunity cost is really valid here.  In order to measure the opportunity cost we need to know what substitutes existed for their labor and strife.  Often time work and passionate effort can actually benefit the laborer more than the alternatives.  Sure we know they were expensive objects, but how do we measure their value in terms of people inspired ?  Hope bestowed ?  Morals lifted [to use a ridiculous musing, perhaps many criminals turned from their crime because of these, etc].  Given that the economic systems of the time, it is tremendously difficult to measure opportunity cost - this is all.  The only thing I do know is the power that they hold and example of human achievement.

To overhash a bit, how do I measure the opportunity cost of my hypothetical 14-year-old son on his decision to take up a full time sport ?  Maybe he would turn to drugs and alcohol (I am wincing at the silly example, but you get the point) were he not to pursue some 'more beautiful' goal.  The cathedrals are the best that the middle ages had to offer :-)

I think we may basically agree on the God question, my only point is really that there are many questions which people get all excited about for which we have no information.  They are questions that logically shouldn't interest us.  But they do, we are absurd.  When someone claims such a position to be true, strange as it is to do so without data, the position should be judged on the merits to the devotee and to society.  I don't think there are many *religious* positions which do not conflict reliable science in some way but I am sure that there are some.  I would say Atheism is one of these *religious* positions which do not contradict science.  Some forms of Buddhism fall into this.  I am sure that some Christian positions do as well...

Anyways, nice to talk, I have 2 daughters to run home to.  2 and 0.3 years.  I really understand your bit about kids!

Your writing reminds me of Bob Mccue - have you read any of his stuff ?

ruski_canuk:
beenthere: I may be wrong, but I understand your post to assume that if God exists he will punish atheists (send them to hell) while *blessing* theists. I suggest reading some critiques of Pascal's wager to see the folly of this false dichotomy. For example, perhaps God is one who will reward skepticism, inquiry, etc. (Agnostics will rule the day :-) )

Which god do we choose though?  Is beenthere saying that as long as we choose to believe in a form of god, we will be okay?  Or we can get really crazy and posit that whatever religion we were born into, that is the place god put us and so we had better be true to that or else we are going to hell.  ??  That leaves the millions of born atheists in a lurch... hmmm.  What religion do they choose then?  They can't possibly choose the right one.  It's impossible to verify which version of god is the right one. 

I don't have it figured out... don't look at me ;)

My own opinion is that if there is a God, Alien race, or whatever that spawned our universe, that it will not be concerned in the least if you adhered or not to the religion of your parents or any other religion for that matter. I would argue that without providing any evidence of itself, it would be morally wrong for it to do so. If you believe that you will be sincerely happier in this life without religion (or believing that there is no God) I bet that is the best path for you. I personally find the idea of a vindictive, punishing God extremely superficial and childish. It may have served an important function of deterring bad behavior for a time but I think the fruits of good behavior now speak for themselves (in most places) and any need for using fear to get moral behavior is obsolete. But that's just me.

ruski_canuk:beenthere: I may be wrong, but I understand your post to assume that if God exists he will punish atheists (send them to hell) while *blessing* theists. I suggest reading some critiques of Pascal's wager to see the folly of this false dichotomy. For example, perhaps God is one who will reward skepticism, inquiry, etc. (Agnostics will rule the day :-) )

Ruski,
You understand right....is what I understand based on fundamental Christian teachings.  I'll check out the Pascal's wager stuff. Thanks.

noggin:

ruski_canuk:
beenthere: I may be wrong, but I understand your post to assume that if God exists he will punish atheists (send them to hell) while *blessing* theists. I suggest reading some critiques of Pascal's wager to see the folly of this false dichotomy. For example, perhaps God is one who will reward skepticism, inquiry, etc. (Agnostics will rule the day :-) )

Which god do we choose though?  Is beenthere saying that as long as we choose to believe in a form of god, we will be okay?  Or we can get really crazy and posit that whatever religion we were born into, that is the place god put us and so we had better be true to that or else we are going to hell.  ??  That leaves the millions of born atheists in a lurch... hmmm.  What religion do they choose then?  They can't possibly choose the right one.  It's impossible to verify which version of god is the right one. 

I don't have it figured out... don't look at me ;)

'Twas an example based on my current beliefs (fundamental Christian).  Right now I'm so confused my head is spinning.  Which belief, which God indeed.....

CdnXMo:Many theists believe that 'God' is the fundamental 'watchmaker' of the universe.

If that is true then based on what we see in nature he must be a brutal, vicious, sadistic, SOB!  Given how vast the universe is and how infitessimally small the amount of biological life is in comparison, this watchmaker must have very little interest in biological life forms.  It seems that he would much rather create giant stars and watch them go BOOM ripping apart neighboring star clusters and frying any nearby lifeforms with a barrage of deadly radiation.  He must really enjoy crushing things into oblivion since this is what happens at the center of all the galaxies he created.

ruski_canuk:

The dilemma is deep.  Consider the question of 'what started existence ?'.  Any answer is unsatisfactory.  In fact, our brains are not equipped to understand this.  We can't even understand hypotheses on the question let alone find proofs for those unsatisfactory hypothesis.

I disagree.  Only if one seeks a mystical answer can the question "what started existence" not be solved.  If, on the other hand, one determines to seek an answer based purely on evidence, logic and the physical laws of the Universe, said answer can most certainly be comprehended by the human brain.  Based on currently available evidence, the answer is: the Big Bang.

Granted, we are still working about the details of what precisely happened during the Big Bang.  The difficulty lies with our current inability to fully interrelate the physical and mathematical frameworks of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity.  One need not assume, however, that this current inability represents a permanent injunction against such an understanding.  The bulk of the work now in progress in the field of theoretical physics is focused on solving this problem and there are already some promising leads.

ruski_canuk:

Just look at a 14th century Cathedral in France.  Any power which can motivate destitute people to make that is to be respected and honored.

Ah, but was it truely the idea of honoring God that motivated medieval Europe to build such stunning structures?  During the High and Late Middle Ages, European cities often competed with one another over who could build the grandest cathedral.  To this day, in fact, tour guides in Europe's great churches are sure to emphasize that the particular church you are visiting is the longest in Europe, or has the tallest tower, or has the tallest ceiling, or has the biggest bell, etc.

beenthere:

And I'm sure you're going to feel like you're beating your head against the wall....but, why can't he be incomprehensible?  Why can't it be a mystery?

Put simply, incomprehensibility (yes, I made that word up) and mystery cannot have any meaning in a material and ordered universe, as ours has proved to be.

Jean Valjean:

I have wrestled with this question as well.  After numerous conversations with family and friends still within the Mormon mind machine, it seems clear that people are simply not rational beings.  We view ourselves as rational.  We try to be rational.  However, our minds are limited in the way that we process information.  Theories that try to explain behavior in my field have advanced in our field when they have loosened the "people are rational cognitive beings" assumption and accepted the emotional, cultural, heuristic, and bounded nature of how people behave.

And herein lies what I see as the greatest tragedy of the human condition.  Despite the capacity for reason, most of our fellow Homo sapiens simply choose not to view the Universe in rational terms.  My point in bringing up the agent assumption theory was to demonstrate that the motivation for ignoring reason and credible evidence is likely influenced by genetics as well as our culture and upbringing.  If true, that indicates that such a propensity is an instrinsic characteristic of humanity.

Jason the Mason:

The theists damn the athiests to hell, damnation, or the like.  Athiests decry the ignorance and blindness of the theist.  I know it's naive of me to ask, but why can't we all just agree to dissagree?

In a real but limited sense, Western civilization has done precisely that.  Here in the US, this idea is often expressed as "separation of church and state" or "freedom of religion."  Elsewhere it may be called secularism.  Whatever the name, the net effect is the same: no group may impose its beliefs on another group or individual.  Without that principle, a thought-provoking thread like this one would not be possible. 

ruski_canuk:

But so called truth is not the only part of the human experience - we like to dream.

Its when we confuse our dreams with reality that we get into trouble. 

ruski_canuk:

Let's say I discover a new technology which can scan the farthest galaxy for intelligent life. It will take 10 years for the experiment to take place. The 'atheist on life's existence' would say there is no life during the 10 years of waiting (or would say that the probability is really low[as if they know it ]. The 'theist' on life's existence' would say that there is life during the 10 years of waiting. Or you could flip it around, it doesn't matter. Perhaps you see why I think the position is irrelevant. This is not speaking to any truth. For me, I would judge either position based on the merits of what it brings to the believer. If believing that there is life out there excited the theist, why shouldn't they believe in it ? If the atheist loves the idea of being alone, why shouldn't they believe in their position ? It really has to do with the value of the belief to the believer when talking about questions for which there is no data.

The trouble with your argument here is that belief does not exist in a vacuum.  Beliefs form the cognitive basis for decisions and actions.  False beliefs lead to poor decisions and possibly unwise actions.  In your example, the theist who is already convinced there is intelligent life may not wait for your results but will rush off to the stars in search of said life.  Such a search, of course, will prove futile if your scan returns a negative result.

Ruski,

Another great post, most of which I agree with.  Here are a couple points that make the issues more clear in my mind.

 

In my field, we use the terms internal and external validity as describe ways of critiquing a theory.  Internal validity represents the extent to which a theory is coherent and does not contradict itself.  It is self-consistent.  External validity represents the extent to which a theory is consistent with observable data.  The internal validity criterion is, as you say, sufficient to reject the “god as portrayed in organized religion” theory.  If we assume that we have absolutely no data on the god question, then the notion of external validity isn’t applicable.  I only agree with the statement that we don’t have any data on the question, however, if the theory of god is defined in such a way as to be unfalsifiable, in which case it is useless.  Any useful theory of god would provide some degree of falsifiability which, by logical necessity, implies that there are some data available.  Those are terms that make it more clear in my mind…

 

I think we could go a few more rounds about the cathedral thing, but in the end we both agree that they are beautiful and a tribute to those whose labor and ingenuity drove their creation.  Let’s leave it at that.

 

Daughters are great!  I bet yours are wiz kids!

 

I’ve read just about everything thing that Bob McCue has written (and he has written a lot!).  He was extremely helpful to me in making my journey out of the church.  I wouldn’t doubt that some of his ideas have stuck in me.  He is a shoulders of giants kind of guy.

 

It is nice to get to know you through verbal exploration!

 

Jean Vajean

Two great points, Stemmetje. 

It just seems wrong to me that people believe false things.  It seems wrong to me that institutions take money and time from people based on false beliefs.  Sure, the church gives a certain amount of comfort and social support through its lie, but in exchange it takes your time, money and mind.  I tend to believe that that same comfort and support can be had without the lie, and without such a high cost.

 

You are right, Stem.  Belief does not occur in a vacuum.  If Reagan wants to consult a psychic on whether he should eat bran flakes or cheerios for breakfast, fine.  But if his belief leads him to consult such unreliable sources in making foreign policy decisions then it is not fine.  When the implications of beliefs have consequences that extend beyond the believer, the believer is no longer free to evaluate those beliefs only in terms of consequences for him/herself.  I don’t think that Ruski will disagree with that…

 

Jean Vajean

Really nice posts all around. What a beautiful thing the internet is which allows us to gather and discuss these absurdities :-) I am amazed at how lucky we are with the vast liberties and freedoms provided by the free world.


Valjean: What is your field of study if I may ? My daughters are wiz-kids but not in the *smart* sense of 'wiz'. To be fair, our 2-year-old has nearly mastered the potty. I like your drive to clear up terms, something that God-discussions can quickly foul.


The *useless* discussion about the unfalsifiable God (this is the God that I generally have meant, hence useless for truth-seekers) is only *useful* because of how it affects people. This is my point. One question that most would agree is meaningless is (I've used this example already, pardon me) "Does there exist an intelligent life form with the name pronounced 'Zelph' somewhere in the universe ? The question is more tractable than the question of God and yet all I hope would agree that there is no data on it - not even to talk about probabilities (well there is a little, we can minus one solar system off the map). The reason that we don't fight over Zelph's existence is simply because noone cares. It is as much a meaningless (for truth-seekers) question, in terms of our life times, as is God. I am rehashing this point partly in response to Stemmetje.


People, regardless of their motivation for it, desire to believe in God and my thesis here is that as long as that conception of God does not violate reliable science, then the belief should be judged soley on the merits that it brings to themselves and society.


Stemmetje: The dilemma of the prime mover still exists if we believe in the big bang (which I do). Please tell me about the universe a second before the big bang. If it is God that triggered it then who/what triggered God ? God is just a placeholder and doesn't help or hinder the dilemma. I can't even dream up a comprehensible possibility let alone test it.



Your last point, Stemmetje, is exactly my point: we should judge them on how the belief affects them and society. If it causes them to do something rash (charing off looking for life without reason) and the good (perhaps lurching society's technology forward by scrambling to make spacecraft :-) far fetched but you get the drift I hope) doesn't outweigh that than fine, it is a "bad" belief. But the believers in distant life and skeptics of the distant life believers shouldn't be judged on the truthfulness of their beliefs as there is no way to decide, whatsoever!


 My research involves looking at climate change impacts and causes and often I am amazed at how humans tend to be most sure (strong atheist vs. fundamentalist) or (climate skeptic vs. alarmist) about things which are most uncertain. True, the God-believers practice this playing down of uncertainty commonly (see Mormon testimony meeting) but Atheists, in my experience, often claim similar extremes of certainty with just as little data.  I think this falls in line with the second finding of Valjean's research.

Ask someone if they are libertarian: well maybe, sometimes, in some ways, a few years ago I wasn't but now I am, etc, are the kinds of responses you get.

Ask someone if they believe in God: yes or no.  That's it.

Wow!  This discussion has helped me crystallize some random thoughts that have been bouncing around my head.  I found especially helpful rusk canuck's statement of his thesis:

People, regardless of their motivation for it, desire to believe in God and my thesis here is that as long as that conception of God does not violate reliable science, then the belief should be judged soley on the merits that it brings to themselves and society.

That's the direction in which my thinking has been drifting, and it gives me, as an unbeliever, a good framework for deciding how to relate to belief.

Thanks, folks.