Self Selected Truths

So here's an argument based upon arguments atheists make a lot.

(1) Empirical science has produced knowledge, technology, medicine, etc., etc. It's awesome.
(2) Abstract philosophy has produced nothing at all; it appears to be mere navel gazing.
(3) Therefore, we should base all of our beliefs on empirical science, not abstract philosophy.
(4) The arguments for God are abstract philosophy of exactly the kind that has proven so worthless.
(5) Therefore, we should reject all of the arguments for God.

To me, this seems to be a powerful argument for non belief. It doesn't prove that there's no God, but it does provide a potential reason not to believe in God, which is the same thing for all practical purposes.

The theist has two ways out, maybe. The first would be to muddy the distinction between philosophy and science. I think that this is probably doable to some extent, but I'm not sure how doable it actually is. The second would be to attack (4), and argue that some of the arguments for God are different from medieval philosophy in significant respects. Again, I'm not sure how doable this is.

Anyway, I'd like to hear what people have to say about this argument. I haven't seen anyone formulate it explicitly before.

So here's an argument.

(1) Empirical science has produced knowledge, technology, medicine, etc., etc. It's awesome.


* That is not a reason to assume that it's the only form of knowledge (which he does assume in the argument).

*Doesn't make it a competitor with religion.

* he's essentially arguing truth is indicated by it working. working = truth. Religious belief works too to produce the things it's supposed to produce.

(2) Abstract philosophy has produced nothing at all; it appears to be mere navel gazing.

bull honky do do that is BS!

*philosophy has produced many things including empirical scinece!

* you can't interpret data in the context of a hypothesis without philosophical thinking.

*"nature" is a philosophical construct and all the more so is "naturalism" You can't have an ideological framework such as naturalism without philosophical thinking.

* Religious belief does not reduce to just philosophy. Trashing philosophy is not a defeat for God argument nor is it a defeat for belief in God.


(3) Therefore, we should base all of our beliefs on empirical science, not abstract philosophy.

*that would not follow even if we granted the premises.

science works
philosophy doesn't do anything
therefore science is the only way to think

that does not follow. There can be other ways to think even if they are not philosophical.

*Of cousre the truth is it's not the case because you can't think scientifically without thinking philosophically.





(4) The arguments for God are abstract philosophy of exactly the kind that has proven so worthless.

*not necessary. arguments from experience are not abstract philosophy.

*God pod argument is not abstract philosophy

*reverse quantum is no more abstract philosophy than QM theory is.

* nor are God arguments the only basis for belief in God. Trashing philosophy does absolutely nothing to negate the warrant for belief.

*You can't have a coherent understanding of naturalism or it's implications without abstract philosophy. Atheism is just as dependent.


(5) Therefore, we should reject all of the arguments for God.

since every premise above is disproved so is this.

The Atheist Argument of Divde and Conquor: Universality of Religous Expernice

Antithesis try to trade off of the great number of faiths all the time. Often they will respond to any mention of God with "Which God." They treat different religious traditions as their God's are compete with each other for existence.

We can us Occam to trim the fat int he God market down to one. This is all we need is one. We have good reason to think there can only be one, since God is being itself and there can't be two of those.

the question of religious traditions is the question of cultures.The religious a prori, the special sense of the divine that we encounter beyond words and images, is loaded into cultural constructs so we can talk about it. That means the things that make religions different are just cultural.

the major counter to this atheists always bring up is the difference in ceremony and mythology. Both are merely cultural all we get is the differences in human culture that is the lens through which the experience of the divine is filtered.

It doesn't' beat the argument to talk about all the little fiddly bits in religions because those are the cultural aspects. The M scale proves the universal nature of the divine because it shows that people in all cultures have a core experience and it's the same all over the world. Religious experience and belief are innate. That means that while it must be filtered through the lens of culture it exists in all cultures and it's a good bet that it will have a common core of experience that is the same.

The M Scale

The “M Scale” (Mysticism scale) was developed by Ralph Hood Jr. at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. It has become the standard study instrument by which validation of mystical experience is accomplished empirically. Hood’s instrument has been cross culturally validated and is probably represents the cutting eduge of research in this field of Religious experience. The scale is a series of questions and a scoring technique, which has been worked out according to standard social scientific assumptions. The scale has been so successful it has become the standard operating procedure[i] and replaces the former practice of the researcher trying to develop her own scale, a practice that led to as many scales as there were studies. The M scale is by far the most successful and has been cross culturally validated with great successes. It is based on the phenomenological categories of mystical study by W.T. Stace and makes certain assumptions of William James. Hood’s original measuring instrument, the REEM, was based upon the categories of James. The M scale follows the phenomenological development of Stace. The scale uses 32 items (these are questions that are asked of the subject). The items are organized with 16 Positive and 16 negatively worded. Independent studies supported Hood’s original design, (Caird, 1988, Reinert and Stifler, 1993).[ii]

Originally M scale measured two factors: (1) Assesses items of an experienced unity (introvertive or extrovertive). (2) Assesses items of a experience of religious or non religious and knowledge claims. This is consistent with Stace’s concept that Mystical experience can be interpreted in many ways. Reinert and Stifler suggested religious items and knowledge items might emerge as separate factors. This would split the interpretative factors between religious and non-religious factors. That would not contradict Stace. There is a distinction between “spiritual” and “religious.” Mystical experience can be interpreted (as we have seen already) as “spiritual” without being thought religious, or as “mystical” without involving God. The two-item approach allows greater interpretation. But the interpretive factor was religious in nature. The assumptions made in the study and taken to answering the questions tended to be religious.[iii]

Hood changed his strategy from two analytic factors to three (“the three factor solution”). The Three factor solution sets up three categories, which more closely follow the predictions of Stace based upon his reading of mystics and person experience. (“phenomenological”). The three categories for Stace were: Staces’ categories of Introvertive and extrovertive mysticism emerging as two separate factors. The third factor is an interpretive dimension where the respondent relates the experiences to knowledge claims (“God is love” or some such). Interovertive means the mystical experience is beyond word though or image, it is iner directed and not related to any outside phenomenon and I supposed to be beyond description. This will also be discussed more in chapter five (“Religious Apiori”). Extrovertive means the subject’s experience is related to nature or to some external image in the immediate environment, a sense of the numinous, the harmony underlying all of nature or something on that order. The tables below demonstrate the basic structure Stace’s theory and the three factor test. They demonstrate the closeness with which the latter validates the former.

The M scale follows Stace’s phenomenological accounts of mystical experience. It also reflects, therefore, Stace’s theoretical concerns. The major such concern is known as “the common core” hypothesis. The common core assumption is a universalistic approach, whereby it is assumed that a verity of different interpretations and descriptions match the same experiences. A corollary might be that one reality stands beyond the many different mystical traditions. One of the major critics of this view, who we will meet again in defense of Proudfoot (chapter six) is Steven Katz (1977) who wrote an edited an anthology against Stace’s work. He assumes that the common core thesis is asserting that mystical experience is unmediated. Thus he argues that extreme language is used not just to describe mystical experience but that langue itself is experience. Language used in description constitutes the experience itself rather than merely describing it. This position will be critically examined in chapters five and six (a priori, and Proudfoot). [i] But Stace doesn’t argue that the experience is unmediated. Hood points out that Stace only says there are degrees of interpretation and descriptions can makes similar but not identical experiences. Hood also points out that Foreman marshals opponents against Katz. He argues that since introvertive is devoid of description language can’t really play a role in constituting it.(for more on this issue see chapters five and six).

Hood and Spilka point three major assumptions of the common core theory that flow out of Stace’s work:

(1) Mystical experience is universal and identical in phenomenological terms.

(2) Core Categories are not always essential in every experince, there are borderline cases.

(3) Interovertive and extrovertive are distinct forms, the former is an experience of unity devoid of content, the latter is unity in diversity with content.

The M scale reflects these observations and in so doing validate Stace’s findings. Hood and Spilka (et al) then go on to argue that empirical research supports a common core/perinnialist conceptualization of mysticism and it’s interpretation.

The argument that the similarities of the human mind produce the same experiences is self defeating becuase if that were true then the fiddly bits of religion should be the same too. So the atheist argument that religions are all different defeat their assertion that this universal experience is just coming from the human mind.

could you write this down this time so you can stop making the same mistake all the time?

---

[i] Bernard Spilka, Ralph Hood Jr., Bruce Hunsberger, Richard Gorwuch. The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach. New York, London: the Guildford Press, 2003, 323.

[ii]Ibid.

[iii] Ibid,

[i] Ibid.

God, Simple or Complex?

 I have re-written this since yesterday and with apologies to my readers becasue it was originally a disjointed piece of crap. I did not take the time to write a quality piece. For this reason I'm starting over and using an essay I posted on Atheist because I like the way I gave the answers in that one. But I have a quote that is not in that section. I can't find the original, it's attributed to Richard Dawkins and appears quoted by a poster on CARM named "Swordsman."

 CARM: Swordsman (4/22/10)

Richard Dawkins wrote, “A designer God cannot be used to explain organized complexity because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right. God presents an infinite regress from which he cannot help us to escape.” (4) Another skeptic said that the problem comes in the end, in the assumption that there must be a first cause (God). Dawkins said, “They (believers – DL) make the entirely unwarranted assumption that God himself is immune to the regress.” (5) Thus, atheists say that making God an exception is special pleading,

The problem stems from the basic tendency of Dawkins to try and turn God into a biological organism and make him subject to physical law. I think he does this because the kind of naturalistic that Dawkins is can't think creatively. Be that as it may, I have a word about design before I get into the issue of complexity and God. The using of organized complexity as an argument for the existence of God must be done very sparingly and very carefully. This is because the design argument is not a good argument. I have found some specialized uses for aspect of the design argument, and I say must be done carefully,but by and large I don't use the design argument because it's based upon a fallacy. It first of all treats God like a big man, a big city planner in the sky. The problem with "planning' is it's a human thing. It's also a problem because you can't base belief upon the appearance of the word, since we do  not have a designed world (or one that we know is either way) to compare it to. So we don't know what a  designed world would look like or an undersigned one. We have no control planet to compare.

This is also a big problem for atheists they just need to be made aware of it. Atheists are always trying to extrapolate form the look of the world to the nature of God--there's evil in the world, there can't be a loving God. The world is a big mess, there can't be  a God who cares ect ect. They are doing the same thing the design argument does, reasoning from the nature of the world to the existence or non existence of a creator.


Dawkins.net

This part 2 of the previous post. I was considering an argument that Dawkins makes to the effect that evolution doesn't leave God anything to do. The idea that evolution is a counter to God belief is so sophomoric it's hardly worth arguing against, but the fact that Dawkins is willing to argue it seroiusly is very telling. The "new atheists" or "Dawkies" as I call them (Dawkamentalits) take the same tact mocking and ridiculing real, serious, advanced and sophisticated liberal theology. But he augments the simplistic contradiction between God and evolution by trying to turn it into a basis for probabilistic analysis ruling out the probability of God.

Wouldn't we be tempted to fall on our knees and worship them, as a medieval peasant might if suddenly confronted with such miracles as a Boeing 747, a mobile telephone or Google Earth? But, however god-like the aliens might seem, they would not be gods, and for one very important reason. They did not create the universe; it created them, just as it created us. Making the universe is the one thing no intelligence, however superhuman, could do, because an intelligence is complex—statistically improbable —and therefore had to emerge, by gradual degrees, from simpler beginnings: from a lifeless universe—the miracle-free zone that is physics.

So he uses this notion to create an opposition then leverages out the God concept on the basis that it's primitive and superstitious. The lever is the probability analysis. Evolution is the competing er zots creator. He then asserts the astounding concept that a mind can't create evolution. This is supposedly the case because as  a statistically complex thing a mind would be improbable since it has to be the product of evolution and develop. That would god is the product of evolution. That would make evolution and the who understands it best (Dawkins?) would be God's "Keeper." Aside from that aspect, Dawkins thinking here is extremely silly. But let's take it in stages.  First I'll deal with the original allegation that God has nothing to do in an evolving universe, secondly I'll deal with the inane probability argument.

The basic assumption he makes is that God is a big man in the sky. The reason I think he assumes this is because he treats God as though God were a big man; men need "tings to do." Of cousre if God created evolution one would have to think that he understood this would leave him with time on his hands. Rather than postulate the existence of a huge heavenly golf course with angelic caddies, perhaps we might just suspect that God doesn't need to "do things" in the same way that we do. Tilehard de Chardin theorized that God is the strong force. The strong force holds together atomic structures. In that case God would have a lot to do, assuming he "needed something to do." But not being a big man beyond our understanding we might just assert that God doesn't get board, doesn't have to challenge himself with meaningless activities and if he is trying to draw people to Christ he has his hands full anyway trying to convict people like Dawkins of their arrogance, and also teaching logic to atheists. That ought to keep him busy for an eternity or two.

Notice that Dawkin's arguments don't stem from the idea that God would not be capable of making a universe, but that he needs an activity, what he really mean is that in our understanding of argument for the existence of god there's nothing for him to do (that assumes the best implication because he does not say this). He may really mean there's nothing we can see that would give us an idea of the difference between God and no God. Stephan Hawking's argument is not based upon the probability scam but upon a question prompted by his own theory which removes the singularity in favor of a no boundary condition of the universe; in other words the universe did not begin in time.

So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose that it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator? (quoted byCTNS)

This is different from Dawkin's argument, but the answers overlapp. Keith Ward Takes issue in God, Chance and Necessity (quoted on CTNS site, Ibid.)

"On the quantum fluctuation hypothesis, the universe will only come into being if there exists an exactly balanced array of fundamental forces, an exactly specified probability of particular fluctuations occurring in this array, and existent space-time in which fluctuations can occur. This is a very complex and finely tuned ‘nothing’... So this universe looks highly contingent after all, and a creator God might well choose to create a partly probabilistic universe by choosing just such an origin for it."

Drees points out that in fact the Hawking-Hartle proposal accords well with a theology which emphasises that every space is equally created by God, ‘“sustaining” the world in all its “times.”’ R.J.Russell has shown, moreover, that at the core of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo is the principle of ontological dependence - that all matter, all energy, and the laws that govern the universe all depend for their existence on a God whose existence is not dependent on anything. The discovery of an actual temporal beginning to this material universe would not prove this doctrine (since the doctrine rests on metaphysical convictions about God and existence) but only provide an additional gloss to it

Russell, Ph.D. Physics Santa Cruz,
prof Theology and Scinece
Founder and director CTNS

This means there are still things for God to do, just in case he needs them. Form the standpoint of apologetic there are still "earmarks" of God's work. But with Dawkins argument the rationale is quite different. His probability mess does not lend itself well to the God argument proof issue. He's not just looking for a hint of God's handiwork to compare to regular nature, but is actually trying to subject God to the needs and habits of a big man. He's creating his own Staw God concept and trying to wedge that in to the Christian argument. Dawkn's strwa God is a big biological organism subject to the same needs for challenge and stimulation that humans possess. He has a human mind that can be compared to our own reasoning processes so that a probability can be fixed to it's existence. Of course it would have to be the product of evolution because in Dawkin's world straw God is the product of higher forces, not the ground of being or the primordial aspect of reality upon which all other things depend, but the Dawkamentalist er zots God of science, evolution, has to create the straw God. In so doing Dawkins has tipped his hand, it is apparent he doesn't understand the Christian concept of God nor is he working within it's philosophical boundaries. He's not only created a straw God but he's placed it under jurisdiction of his own er zots god.

Of course weather one is a Tillichian, a Lutheran or a Thomism, even a protestant evangelical God is not a product of anything. No Christian group anywhere would accept this. That aspect alone marks Dawkin's straw God as a straw man argument. Of course as the last post parted out (part 1) it makes so much more sense to understand God as the progenitor of physical law, and perhaps directing to toward evolution, rather than the product of it, because otherwise you have these disembodied laws that most modern scientists don't even see as perspective anymore, no way to explain what they do or where they are located prior to the universe. That also means that the universe itself lacks explanation. Thanks to this maneuver Dawkin's idea actually highlights the real need to understand God as the basis of reality rather than to posit a big man with nothing to do. For this reason his argument is circular as the premise (God is a big man with nothing to do) rests upon the conclusion (viewing  God in which way disproves the existence of God).

That God is subject to evolution Dawkins predicates upon the human understanding of the universe about the nature of complexity. Complexity serves a key function in the argument because with it probability might favor God. But in using it he opens the door to another means of destroying his argument. He wants to say that God would have to be complex because as far as we know only complexity can produce more complexity. Thus a complex universe would have to be the process of a more complex God:

To midwife such emergence is the singular achievement of Darwinian evolution. It starts with primeval simplicity and fosters, by slow, explicable degrees, the emergence of complexity: seemingly limitless complexity—certainly up to our human level of complexity and very probably way beyond. There may be worlds on which superhuman life thrives, superhuman to a level that our imaginations cannot grasp. But superhuman does not mean supernatural. Darwinian evolution is the only process we know that is ultimately capable of generating anything as complicated as creative intelligences. Once it has done so, of course, those intelligences can create other complex things: works of art and music, advanced technology, computers, the Internet and who knows what in the future? Darwinian evolution may not be the only such generative process in the universe. There may be other "cranes" (Daniel Dennett's term, which he opposes to "skyhooks") that we have not yet discovered or imagined. But, however wonderful and however different from Darwinian evolution those putative cranes may be, they cannot be magic. They will share with Darwinian evolution the facility to raise up complexity, as an emergent property, out of simplicity, while never violating natural law.

He just asserts that natural law is all there is and thus God must be a product of natural law. This astounding conclusion is arrived at how? By using human understanding based upon, his own words, "Darwinian evolution is the only process we know that is ultimately capable of generating anything as complicated as creative intelligences." And how much of the universe have seen? Up close we know some stuff form one planet, how much? We don't know, we are still amazed by our own planet. Off planet we've made remarkable progress through telescopes and other long range means, but what do we really know?

John Polikinghorne Q and A (question about cosmological argument)
John Polikinghorne's Websiet
the answer of his assistant

However since it is known that only 4% of the matter and energy in the Universe is made of what we understand as matter, and most of the universe seems, on current understandings, to be “dark matter” and “dark energy” about which we know nearly nothing, and no-one knows how to reconcile Quantum Mechanics with General Relativity (the much-hyped String Theory looks increasingly like a dead-end) it is unwise to assume that current understandings of cosmology represent the last word.
  I’ll see what John has to add. John said he had nothing to add to this reply

We can take this to mean we know only about 4% of the universe. Actually it might be a lot less but this s a good illustration of one aspect of which we know almost nothing, and that aspect is major. So Dawkins standard for fixing human knowledge is pretty feeble. But the fact he's willing to do it is interesting because when we use the same kind of standard in God arguemnts, it means nothing to an atheist. We say "not one single example anywhere in all of reality shows a non contingent aspect of the natural world" but they dont' care. As far as they are concerned that tells us nothing about the universe being contingent. they are willy to shout "fallacy of composition" on that one but totally ignore what the limited data base does to their assumption about complexity and human knowledge.

(1) tries to force God under the jurisdiction of the physical by just asserting the universal necessity of physical law, he abhorrence of Magic, of course making out that supernatural is "only magic" which can't exist because it's opposed to the ideology of physcialism and lack of a God forbid that anything should contradict that! We know that's the only real truth how do we know it? by the same circular reasoning that allows us to hide proof of miracles under the same dictum and to assume through circular reasoning that there is no God.

(2) Of course attaching a probability to something like God woud be totally impossible since there's nothing to compare to. the very concept of the probability of the foundation of reality is impossible understand.

In addition to this there are also a couple of problems with the "complexity" and applying it to God.

(1) No basis for comparison.

How could one say if the basis of reality is complex or simple? This would especially be perplexing if creation has a moment in time. If God existed "before" creation (if creation is done in time then there can be a "before") as opposed to placing it in a spacial coordinate such as "beyond event horizon." In either case to what do we compare God? Let's say we have car in an eternal void of nothing. This is true absolute nothing, no vacuum flux, no germs no nothing. Just pure darkness and this care. Now how fast is it moving? Is it moving at all? Say it's 0 mph. But wait, no landmarks to measure miles, no time to measure hours, hwo can we even say it's moving at all, must less how fast? This is the same problem we have in consider God's complexity. What is complex compared to God? Does the term have a meaning. What is simple compared to the only thing that is? On the other hand suppose there's nothing but a singularity, a mathematical dot. The dot would be complex compered to nothing, but compared to us it would be simple.



(2) God is simple

Thomas Aquinas  believed that God was simple, the "primary act of existence," extremely simple.

(3) Their premise contradicts evolution which has complexity coming from simplicity

Dawkins says as quoted above that evolution would mean God has to be complex and to have developed by physical laws. On the other hand evolute posits origin from extreme simplicity and the simplicity evolves into complexity. We begin the universe with a singularity and life with a single cell organism. It looks like the principle of complex from the simple is not a contradiction to evolution. Since God is not a biological organism and can't the product of a process that would suggest that God is simple and the complexity of the universe evolved. Moreover, God does not have a physical brain and thus what is it exactly that would need to be complex?

Come to that Dawkins is willing to use human data base, limited though it is, to argue absolute analogy for things beyond our observation, so why isn't he wiling to accept the notion of a contingent universe?

(4) If God was complex it would have no consequances because God is not vulnerable to the probelms of complexity

a. wont wear out no entropy

b. doesn't have to be the result of a process

Where does that leave God? The kindest thing to say is that it leaves him with nothing to do, and no achievements that might attract our praise, our worship or our fear. Evolution is God's redundancy notice, his pink slip. But we have to go further. A complex creative intelligence with nothing to do is not just redundant. A divine designer is all but ruled out by the consideration that he must at least as complex as the entities he was wheeled out to explain. God is not dead. He was never alive in the first place.

Of course I've already demonstrated quotations above that show God would still have a lot to do as the strong force, setting target levels for fine tuning. But of course there's no reason to believe God needs to do anything. This requires the notion  of a God of liberal theology. When confronted with this reality Dawkins shows his true dishonestly. Dawkins seeks to head off a liberal God concept but he just can't quite bring himself to face a real one:

Now, there is a certain class of sophisticated modern theologian who will say something like this: "Good heavens, of course we are not so naive or simplistic as to care whether God exists. Existence is such a 19th-century preoccupation! It doesn't matter whether God exists in a scientific sense. What matters is whether he exists for you or for me. If God is real for you, who cares whether science has made him redundant? Such arrogance! Such elitism."

That's a straw theologian argument because no one says that. There are some who hinted at it in the 60s God is dead movement, but there are plenty of modern theologians still working and none of them really say this. Tillich certainly didn't say it. Tillich says God is a concrete reality not just a wishful thought in our minds. No theologian I know of says that. But plenty of them say that is not a big man in the sky. But Dawkins is not brave enough to take on those guys.

Well, if that's what floats your canoe, you'll be paddling it up a very lonely creek. The mainstream belief of the world's peoples is very clear. They believe in God, and that means they believe he exists in objective reality, just as surely as the Rock of Gibraltar exists. 

 Yea but that does not mean that it's subject to the laws of physics, which He created, nor does it mean he's a big man in the sky either.

If sophisticated theologians or postmodern relativists think they are rescuing God from the redundancy scrap-heap by downplaying the importance of existence, they should think again. Tell the congregation of a church or mosque that existence is too vulgar an attribute to fasten onto their God, and they will brand you an atheist. They'll be right.

 Most of those churches don't believe God is subject physical law or the product of evolution either. Dawkin's arguemnts are convoluted, circular and dishonest he really should be selling securities and making loans for mortgage company.

The Battle Rages on: Dialouge with Spacemonkey

 somehow they just never seem to listen. This is one of the things that makes me most frustrated, the way they say the same things over and over again, year after year and never seem to learn. This exchange is about three posts on CARM this morning but it could be four years ago, any day of the week. I thank my dialogue partner, the inimitable spacemoneky.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Spacemonkeyadb

Do you mean here that nothing but God could have this transformative effect? Or that nothing but RE could produce this effect?

 Meta

so far the only actual data of such things comes from religious experience. many things we know can't produce it such as mental illness, which is always degenerative rather than transformative.

Quote: Spacemonkey
Because you've never even come close to establishing the former. And the latter is irrelevant.

 Meta

sorry you are confused. The former is what is established as scientific fact, from that we can logically deduce the latter. That is a logical deduction not "never come close" I have most certainly come close, in fact I've proved it, in terms of rational warrant.

Quote:Spacemonkey
Nothing but visual illusions have the specific effect upon me that they have. But that is no reason for me to conclude that visual illusions must be produced by really existing impossible 3D objects.

 Meta

But you are doing the deductive work of the argument. you are just creating a straw man argument that's really nothing more than a bad analogy and you are leaving out the crux of the thinking that goes into the rational warrant part.

(1) The RE stuff is the co-determinate--for various reasons we can expect this to be associated with the divine to the extent that we have a historical understanding of that term.

(2) Since we do have this relationship between the co-determinate and the phenomena it is rationally warranted to believe that it is indicative of the divine.

(3) it's not a proof, it's a warrant!

Quote:Spacemonkey

And to insist upon the positive effects of RE as a relevant difference here is to commit the fallacy of appealing to consequences (or do you still think that's just a conspiracy by atheists to subvert your arguments?).

Meta

that is a totally screwy understanding of what that fallacy means. nothing in that fallacy that say you cannot based conclusions on effects.

by your logic the Surgeon general was illogical to say smoking causes cancer. essentially all cause and effect relationships are built upon construal by correlation.

even when you have a mechanism, understanding a mechanism as a mechanism is based upon the contusing form correlation.

by your logic we can scrap cause and effect.

this is an example of the fallacy in sue according to an atheist site:

Quote:
…I want to list seventeen summary statements which, if true, provide abundant reason why the reader should reject evolution and accept special creation as his basic world-view. …

13. Belief in special creation has a salutary influence on mankind, since it encourages responsible obedience to the Creator and considerate recognition of those who were created by Him. …

16. Belief in evolution and animal kinship leads normally to selfishness, aggressiveness, and fighting between groups, as well as animalistic attitudes and behaviour by individuals.
that differs from my use of the RE thing. Because I'm not saying "If you believe this you get good things." Even the alleged fallacy the way it is set up is not a fallcy. this is just the atheist hijacking of logic on the net. atheists who don't study logic use these phony assertions about fallacies that are taylor made to apply to God arguments. it's nothing but a huge lie.

be that as it may my arugement says some differnce must obtain between God doing something and nature doing it. If there's no difference between the two we have no reason to think that God is involved. The difference is in outcome.

that is very different than saying this must be true because it has good consequences.

Quote:Spacemonkey

You have never established that a purely naturalistic account of RE and its positive effects is less likely or plausible than a religious account which posits an actual God as responsible for them. And until you do that your argument does not even establish rational warrant for belief.

Meta

I sure as hell have open your eyes look for a change. did you even read this far? most atheists don't even read the material did you read this? open your eyes and look for a change!

(1) no research that claims to evoke the experience has used the M scale to verify

(2) chemical association are not disproof of Divine connection because it would have to be there anyway even with God. god has to use it so it's not a proof he's not doing it. that's like saying if people have ears it proves God isn't talking to them because God can speak through ears.

(3) I have 7 tie breakers that destroy this position but you have to wait for the book if I divulge it now the publisher wouldn't like it.

(4) you are attempting to lose the phenomena

Quote:Spacemonkey
Originally Posted by Spacemonkeyadb View Post
You have your former and latter mixed up. You just said you have proved that only God could bring about the effects of RE.

Meta
No I did not. I said the difference is what tells us it's connected to God. I didn't say only God can do it i said so far only RE has this association.

Quote:Spacemonkey

But I repeat that it is irrelevant that RE has a particular and positive effect on people, unless you can show that it is less likely to have a natural explanation than a supernatural one. You haven't done this.

Meta

you are not following my argument. I am not using the positive effects of RE as the exisgence for belief at the point of pay off for the warrant. I'm plugging them at the point of the tie breaker where one says "what's the difference in nature doing it and God doing it?" In all cases where where it's undisputed to be nature it's negative, in the only case where it's claimed to be God its positive, and if god was doing it we should expect it to be positive that tells the distinction between nature doing it and God doing.

so when you then say I haven't shown nature can't do it I jsut did. I showed that nature is not doing it. see what to assume it's nature a prori that is begging the question. the issue of RE is what is being argued about so you can't just assume a prori not God you have to show other cases. I show in the other cases nature does't act this way so why think it's nature now? there are other reasons but that's part of it.

showing that nature doesn't act that way in other cases is a reason to think that it's not now.

Quote:Spacemonkey

No. Belief in God-caused RE is not warranted unless you can show that a supernatural cause is more likely than a natural one.
I just did. Because in other case nature never acts that way so why assume it's nature now? especially when the effects are the reason religion exists and they aer what we should expect from the divine?

Meta

the content of the experience is overtly about the divine so there's no real reason to assert the falsehood of the content if the experience itself is real, then knowing that nature doesn't do it otherwise there's no real reason to not accept it as such.

Quote:Spacemoneky

Don't be ridiculous. I'm not saying all cause and effect reasoning is impossible. I'm just saying that the positive effects of RE are no proof of its having a supernatural cause.

Meta

they are not proof it, they are rational warrant because they are tie breaker. do you not understand? nature in other cases does not produce positive effects. In this case the positive effects are expected if God were involved, that is a good reason to think God is involved becasue it's a good reason to think nature is not.

It's also just a priori the nature of the experience is religious.

Quote:Spacemonkey
You miss the point. If RE had purely natural causes inside the brain, then unless you can identify some point where the supernatural intercedes in the prior causal chain leading to those brain events, you will have a case of causal over-determination, rendering your postulated supernatural line of causation entirely superfluous, redundant, and non-explanatory.

 Meta

I just did that. we can say this is the point becuase nature doesn't do that. get it? it is not nature because nature doesn't do it.

you need a logic class. you don't understand the basic conceptions expedience or sense data or corroboration or how we know things. you need epistemology and logic. you don't understand co-determinate.

I said all of this in the previous post. if you were really listening you should have gotten it.

it's the very same as neutrinos. the argument about consequence is nothing more than the way neutrinos came to be understood. by your phony little alleged "fallacy" we should still not accept neutrinos.

Meta

simple answer:

Quote:
If RE had purely natural causes inside the brain, then unless you can identify some point where the supernatural intercedes in the prior causal chain leading to those brain events,
(1) no evidence to show that brain chemistry produces RE because the studies that claim that don't use the M scale

(2) I have showen a point where the SN intercedes.

(a) nature doesnt' behave this way in any other case, not reason to think it would here. for example in menal illness it is not trnasformative

(b) there is reason to think this is SN because it's the co-determinate: the trace of God is the original of religion the sense of the numinous.

(c) the content is about religion,

(3) no reason not to regard it as a straightforward perception of divine presence, that's what it pro-ports to be and the corroborating factors validate it; nature doesn't do it.

Reductionism in Action

this starts in the middle of an argument on my religious experience arguments. From the CARM board and illustrates some well worn ploys that reductionists use.

Quote:

Originally Posted by souper genyus The fact that something makes you happy, comforted, content, complete, etc. is no reason to suggest it's true.

 Meta:

It's not a matter of happy. see you are trying to reduce it. you are losing the phenomena which what (all that) reduction every accomplishes. You are taking a complex argument about co-determinate and turning it into "It makes me happy so it must be true" I wonder why you do that? I can't believe you are not subtel enough to understand the more sophisticated argument, so you must somehow think that reducing the meaning until you lose what's said then attack the remaining straw man is the proper way to conduct an argument.

It's an argument from sign. I admit those are not always good to make but it's not a fallacy a priority. It's not argument begin happy either.

life transformation is a hell of a lot more than just happy.

the point is that it works because it does what religion is supposed to do. That makes criticizing it very pointless. After all what are you criticizing but the thing in line anyone ever found? That's not exactly an elegant solution.

now if I said "I can prove the existence of god" the yes you would have a point. But since I said "I can show it's rationally warranted" you have no case at all. Because it is rational to stick with something that works and that revolutionizes your life and basically gives you the great existential touchdown that every one is really looking for.

That's a rational reason to believe and the fact that it fits the criteria by which we determine reality is an even better reason. That in itself is a totally valid reason to believe the reality of an experience, because we use the same criteria to determine the validity of all experience, and experience is the bedrock of everything we think about reality.

Quote:Super Genyus

That's wishful thinking, plain and simple. Things do work that way. That's why nonsense like astrology, psychics, mediums, etc. all are horribly prevalent. These things give comfort.

 Meta
In addition to reducing it to the point of the phenomena loss you are also arguing from analogy and a little bit guilt by association. Lump it in with BS like astrology despite the fact that it has vast amounts of empirical to prove it's true. Astrology doesn't have that. but you just ignore that and pretend you can argue form analogy anyway.

Quote:

Surely if you believed that, through a medium, that your dead loved one was "on the other side," watching over you, and forgives you for the times you hurt them, you would feel a sense of wonderful comfort in that idea. That doesn't mean it's true. It isn't, as mediums and psychics are almost certainly nothing more than mentalists that pretend it's something paranormal (look up cold reading). This is an example of an error of believing a falsehood, but you can also be a victim of not believing a truth because it is discomforting. If you had cancer but remained in denial, you might be in a better state of mind than if you accepted that truth. That doesn't make it false.

all of which is beside the point because that's your straw man bad analogy argument not what we are really discussing. mystical experience is not magic and it' snot astrology and its not psychics and is validated by empirical studies a whole bunch of them. you are ignoring the issues to make bad fallacious arguments.

Quote:

You should look at the section in Spilka 2003 about "Mysticism as an evolved consciousness." It exists because it is beneficial, not the other way around (so the hypothesis goes). Mysticism reduces stress, develops group unity, etc., so it is possible for it to be evolutionarily beneficial. If it's good for your genes, it doesn't matter if it causes an erroneous belief most of the time.

NONON you are misapplying what he said. Hood, Spilka's co author advised me in writing my book. I happen to know they agree with my argument. you have misinterpreted, (and I really have to wonder if not purposely) so you can introduce a bunch of emotive fallacies that atheists will go for which you yourself should know are fallacious.
Liberal and religious people often have trouble with thinking that evolution formed what's between the ears. I understand, but it's ridiculous to think it.


There's an experience. that experience is the reason religion exist. It's a reaction to the experience. The experience is a puzzle religion is an attempt to understand what it means. To the extent that it's explained well (according to the phenomena of the experience) then the experience validates the hypothesis because it conforms to the predictions. that means religion is a good explanation of the sense of the numinous so we should trust it. trust warrants belief, that = rational warrant.

Quote:

I've told you I'm a pragmatist, so you know I don't believe this. But, you are confusing pragmatism with wishful thinking. Wishful thinking is unpragmatic. It doesn't work at determining what is true and false.

that's ludicrous, how in the hell can 300 studies that show transformational power in one's life be "wishful thinking?" It's wishful thinking that has come true over and over again for millions of people around the world and it's predictable. We can predict it, you have the experience, your life is transformed that's nto wishful thinking!

you don't' know what you are talking about.

Quote:

It solidified my skepticism of your claims.

you didn't really read it, or if you did you have no understanding of what it says. I have been conducting an exchange of views with the author for over a year now. I know what he says I k now what says he meant.

you have not the sidelight idea what you are talking bout. your argument are nothing more straw men and fallacies.

it happens every time. you think here's one of them who can really think and is a nice, o good, no. just another hate group minion who is totally closed to reason.