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Sunday, January 07, 2024

Three best arguments: answering Skeptical

I.Fine Trining. Skeptical argues:
- How is order an indication of God? Order occurs spontaneously. You would need to argue that order can only happen as a result of a conscious mind. But we know that's not true. The "laws of physics" are the product of human minds observing and abstracting the behavior of physical things, but they don't govern that behavior.
First of all, the fine tuning argument does not say order implies God. It does not turn on order. I have no idea where he got that.It's about the specific combination of factors that allow for life to develop that is not the same as infuring God from order in the universe.

Secondly,when he asserts that major structures in the universe,such as natural law, do not require mind or ordering he's begging the question. He's assuming his position as a guide to settle the argument. -
And the universe is not fine-tuned for life. Rather, life is fine-tuned by evolution to exist in its environment. If your assertion were true, we should expect to find more of it, everywhere we look.
   That doesn't follow,"life is fine tuned by evolution..." means nothing, come on what does it mean? Saying that the universe is fine tuned means circumstances are arranged such that life can develop. What does it mean to say life is fine tuned by evolution and why is that not the same as saying the universe is fine tuned to produce life?

 
 But as far as we know life doesn't exist in most parts of the universe. Our planet is one place out of many that is an exception, because it happens to be conducive to life.
Fine tuning would mean small adjustments not sweeping change. So a fine tuned universe would be very similar in many respects to a non life bearing universe. So what does that do to the argument, to say Earth is a little corner where life is possible? So what? Then he harps on my major source of information: -
...Paul Davies is paid to put a religious spin on science, making it sound as if his religious views were legitimate scientific conclusions, which they are not. Nagel, too, is a religious-leaning philosopher who makes his living peddling religious ideas to a religious audience. You can't put much stock in these guys as sources of unbiased information.


Notice he doesn't document anything. Who is paying him and why? My disposition is that Skepie is assuming the Templeton prize is payment, Davies is a highly respected scientist who teaches at Arizona State and other places: He was a popular atheist apologist. Ye already won the Templeton prize so the money is his He doesn't have to earn it.

Paul Davies is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, astrobiologist and best-selling science author. He has published about 30 books and hundreds of research papers and review articles across a range of scientific fields...Among his many awards are the 1995 Templeton Prize, the Faraday Prize from The Royal Society, the Kelvin Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics, the Robinson Cosmology Prize and the Bicentenary Medal of Chile. He was made a member of the Order of Australia in the 2007 Queen's birthday honours list and the asteroid 6870 Pauldavies is named after him. This is all courtesy of that highly biased religious source Arizona State University.[1]


The idea that he's being paid to make pro religious arguments is ludicrous.

  II.The religious experience argument:

Skep says: "Religious or mystical experience is a natural function of the human brain. It occurs with a broad range of intensities and associated mental imagery." Actually, mystical experience is supposed to be beyond images so that statement is a direct contradiction to any real knowledge of the subject.

He then demonstrates the poor state of his knowledge of Hood's work. "Ralph Hood can try to categorize it as 'legitimate' or not, but his position would be challenged by millions of people who have had these kinds of experiences induced by means other than what Hood would allow." What he means by this is a real puzzle. Where does Hood say anything about what means mystical union is allowed? Clearly he has never read Hood and pieced together his own version of what Hood probably says being a fundamentalist christian. But Hood is not a Christian of any sort.Skeptical does not know the basics of his work. Hood has devised a means of controlling for a true mystical experience based upon British philosopher W.T. Stace who studied the great mystics of the world. He says nothing about disalloying meaning or obtaining the state.

Skeptical says:
In many cultures, they use drugs to induce it, but Hood can't tell them that their experience is not legitimate. In our own culture, churches use psychological manipulation to induce religious experiences. The fact is that mystical experience is pretty easy to trigger, either in your own mind, or in someone else's. There is zero real scientific evidence that God is behind it.


Drugs do not induce mystical consciousness, I talk about this in detail in my book.[2] His argument is begging the question. Hood's M scale is validated as a means of determining if one has actually had the kind of experiences the mystics of the world have called "mystical union." Why would people who really have the experience express indignation at Hoods work when he's merely showing them they have it? Fir those who have not really had it shouldn't they face the truth? Skep has no evidence that there would be a conflagration.

...
- "You might want to claim that atheists are threatened by science that supports a religious conclusion, but you would be wrong. Just show us legitimate science to support your religious conclusions." Obviously they are. I have shown legitimate science that supports my view, the work of Ralph Hood.

Despite the fact that you have written a book, we are still waiting. If your conclusions were valid, it would certainly draw attention, but that book hasn't made even a tiny ripple in the scientific community.


That's a really childish understanding of the way academic publishing works. I don't have a big publishing company behind me and this was my first book, I am not in the PhD club.Here is Randel Rouser's interview with me on that book. Also reviewed by Lantz Miller is an academic journal.that's not bad for a first effort.[3]My life is a failure in that I did not achieve any of the goals I set for myself. God wont see me that way because I led people to him, One soul snatched from the jaws of hell matters more than the Nobel  prize.

III.Laws of nature.

   He omitted the title hoping to confuse this with argument I. That's clear from the point below:"How is this argument distinct from the first one?"

  - "mind is the most efficient and dependable source of ordering we know". That's pure hogwash. Order occurs as a result of thermodynamics, in scales ranging from subatomic to stellar. And there is no valid reason to think that there must be a mind behind it. Simple observation provides prima facie evidence that order is spontaneous.
 
I talk about the most efficient source of ording he asserts any king of ordering means we don't need to think about that, He's just ignoring the issue I raise and putting in own straw man. He clearly confused this with a design argument. He asks "How is this argument distinct from the first one?" Argument I is fine tuning it asserts that success inproduciglife implsy devine hel since life is so improbable. This argument asserts the mind is implied in order. Clearly not the same even though they use similar ideas.
 
 
[1] Arizona State University, "Paul Davies Regents Professor (FSC), Department of Physics Regents Professor (FSC), The Beyond Center."  no Date given.https://search.asu.edu/profile/979476
 
[2] Joseph Hinman, The Trace of God, A Rational Warrant for Belief. Grand viaduct, 2014,61, 296,    
 
[3] Searching ffir God In Mystical Experience, An Interview with Joseph Hinman, January 8, 2019 by Randal Rauser.https://randalrauser.com/2019/01/searching-for-god-in-mystical-experience-an-interview-with-joseph-hinman/
Review by Lantz Miller,https://philarchive.org/rec/MILROT-11    

 
Joe HinmanPhone: 469-601-7946Website: The Religious A PrioriBlog: Metacrock's Blog My book, The

10 comments:

  1. Part 1

    "the fine tuning argument does not say order implies God. It does not turn on order. I have no idea where he got that."

    I got it from reading what you wrote:
    3 best God Arguments ...
    I. Fine tuning ...
    A. Universe Displays purposive order ...
    this order can be formulated in terms of purposeful activity. There is evidence of an intelligent order of the universe to which both man and nature are subservient.
    The laws of physics ... encourage it to organize and complexify itself

    So this argument does indeed turn on order (which makes me wonder if you read your own words). The question-begging assumption is that this order is the result of a conscious mind. And it's not a human mind. Therefore, God did it. Of course, there is no substantiation for that assumption. You think it's purposeful. I say there's plenty of observable evidence that order occurs without any intention.

    "That doesn't follow,"life is fine tuned by evolution..." means nothing, come on what does it mean?"

    Evolution is responsible for the rich diversity of life forms in our world. It started out with a molecule that would, in the presence of the right chemical and temperature conditions, replicate itself. And since that replication would sometimes produce an imperfect copy, mutations would result. Replication and mutation are the basis of the evolutionary process. From that point onward, the environment determines which mutations are more prevalent. The ones that are most prevalent are the ones that best fit the environment. Thus, we can euphemistically say that the replicating object is tuned to its environment. Of course, there is no conscious effort to accomplish this. It just happens in nature.

    "Fine tuning would mean small adjustments not sweeping change. So a fine tuned universe would be very similar in many respects to a non life bearing universe."

    Nobody can say what the result would be if the constants of physics were tweaked a little bit, but sufficiently to make a universe that doesn't support life. Maybe a little tweak would make stars emit less energy. But that would be a drastically different world from the one we know. And so would any universe where life is impossible be substantially different from the one we live in. But I pointed out that we don't know if any alternate physical constants or laws of physics are even possible in the first place. And if we are talking about just our little corner of the universe - the planet we live on - you don't need to tweak or change any physical laws at all. All you need is to move the planet to a different place to make life impossible. And that's kind of the point I was getting at. Most of the universe does not support life. But the laws of physics allow life under the right conditions. So the only thing that you can say might be fine-tuned is the placement of our planet. But that also implies that there are other places that could just as well support life. In fact, there is no reason to suppose that finding ourselves in this particular place in the universe is anything more than an accident. Once again, the supposition that it must be intentional is completely unjustified.

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  2. Part 2

    "Notice he doesn't document anything. Who is paying him and why? ... The idea that he's being paid to make pro religious arguments is ludicrous."

    I don't have to document what is well-known public information. Of course, if you read Templeton's own web site, they tend to downplay the religious underpinnings of the organization, focusing more on science. But try doing a little research of your own. Try this for starters: https://politicalresearch.org/2015/08/12/big-questions-about-templeton-how-the-philanthropic-giant-legitimizes-faith-healing. Yes, the Templeton Foundation is very much a religious organization, and it seeks to inject religion into science. That's why most real scientists (who are well aware what Templeton is) wouldn't come near Templeton as a source of funding. And those who do are suspect in terms of doing unbiased scientific investigation.

    "Actually, mystical experience is supposed to be beyond images so that statement is a direct contradiction to any real knowledge of the subject."

    Come on, Joe. We all know that these experiences evoke various thoughts, feelings, and and visions in the mind. This is what I call mental imagery.

    "Clearly he has never read Hood and pieced together his own version of what Hood probably says"

    You yourself have said that Hood's M-scale is used to determine which experiences are "legitimate" and which ones aren't. And you yourself, in the course of justifying your argument that legitimate mystical experiences are produced by God, have argued that drug-induced religious experiences are not legitimate. And you yourself attribute your conclusions on the legitimacy of mystical experiences to Hood and his M-scale. I am using your own words in answer to your argument.

    "Drugs do not induce mystical consciousness"

    Here we go again. Tell that to the indigenous South Americans who use ayahuasca. Or various Hindus. Or Siberian shamans. How arrogant do you have to be to tell anyone that your own religious experience is legitimate but theirs isn't? Read this: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unique-everybody-else/201212/the-spirituality-psychedelic-drug-users

    "That's a really childish understanding of the way academic publishing works."

    That's a stunning statement, being made by someone who has never published any peer-reviewed scientific work, to someone who has.

    "I talk about the most efficient source of ording he asserts any king of ordering means we don't need to think about that"

    You make a claim that is utterly unjustified. When have you ever presented any actual evidence that mind is the most efficient source of ordering? What do you mean by "efficient", and how do you make that determination? Why do you ignore the everyday observations of nature that clearly demonstrate spontaneous ordering without any mind being involved?

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  3. Anonymous9:32 AM

    LOL! Pedophile President supporting Joe Hinnyman lost the aguiment.

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  4. Well, I thought you might have more to say about this.

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  5. Anonymous10:47 AM

    im-skeptical,

    I do not know how long you've known Joe Hinman, but I can tell you from years of reading his "debates" with other people he always evades their questions and objections.

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  6. I have had numerous discussions with Joe, over at least a decade. In all that time, I have never known him to admit that he was wrong, or that any atheist (least of all myself) might be better informed than he on any given topic.

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  7. I have admitted I was wrong. I thought I lost an argument but turns out I was wrong,

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  8. Skep I have been having a lot of computer problems staying on line. That's why i haven't kept after it here.

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  9. Anonymous Anonymous said...
    "LOL! Pedophile President supporting Joe Hinnyman lost the aguiment."


    what in the hell are you trying to say, I doubt you are really all there. why did you spell my name so crasily? that' not cleaver it makes you look illiterate.

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  10. IM, I have a question. Sociology, as you know, is a branch of science. It uses survey answers and similar data to find correlations between a life occurrence or circumstance, and human attitudes or behaviors. Correlations are not causes, and yet people find it reasonable to think that Occurrence A often results in Human Behavior B. My question is, are all these studies to be rejected? Or only the ones where the subjects of the research tend to attribute Occurrence A to actual experience of a higher power?

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