God is not empirical (part 1)

It used to be when I started doing the internet apologetics thing certain atheist certain conventions were in place. Although atheists did seem truly shocked by the prospect that God was not empirical, most of them seemed to accept it. Now they seem universally to be diametrically opposed to even the most veg suggestion that anything could be beyond the empirical, especially god.

The reason is transparent. If God is empirical then the lack of empirical proof counts against belief. So they are willing to give up logically obvious positions in order to get this child's advantage of being able to insist that our little limited view point on this dust mote in a vast sea we have yet to plumb is somehow indicative of real empirical proof of the nature of the universe.

Recently an atheist argued on my message board that parsimony rules out God. This is so ignorant it hurts to think how totally ignorant it is. For one thing, I have an argument that proves the existence of God by parsimony. If God is empirical, and my argument succeeds at proving that he's parsimonious then logically this should prove the existence of God, at least to the extent that that atheist thinks Parsimony would disprove it. But I'm sure he would never admit that. It might interest someone to know that parsimony is not a rule of logic. Its not something that logicians will absolutely endorse. So It's not necessarily a standard of truth. Moreover there are different kinds of parsimony. An idea can be parsimonious in one way and not in a another.

By that term most atheists just "scientific." So to them God is contrary to the rules of science because he's the product of soemthing called "supernatural." They don't have the slightest idea where the concept comes from or what it really says, but they are sure it's stupid and don't' want anything do to with it. So God can't be parsimonious because he's supernatural. I have about eight pages on what the supernatural really is.To get the drift properly please be sure and read them.

God could only be the subject of parsimony if he is the object of empirical investigation. I can see why atheists want this to be true, because they could pretend that they've ruled out God, with their penchant for ignoring God arguments, and their glass half empty outlook which always finds the negative, the dark, the bad, refuses proof, refuses the benefit of a doubt only the cutting edge of doubt. But God is not the object of empriical investigation, nor can he be by definition. thus he cannot be judged by parsimony. The whole idea contradicts phenomenology in the first place. So typical of atheists to cherry pick reality so they accept the schools of philosophy that help them and consign as hog wash any kind of thinking that they can't understand (which is most of it).

God cannot be empirical. There are three reasons. These reasons are deductive. The reasons themselves do not require empirical proof because they are deductive. In fact they could not be empirical and claim to to prove that God is beyond the empirical because they would have to have empirical evdience of God to say that, which would be a contradiction.

The three reasons are absolute:

(1) To be empirical something must be contingent. This is explained by Karl Popper:

empirical facts are facts which might not have been. Everything that belongs to space time is a contingent truth because it could have been otherwise, it is dependent upon the existence of something else for its' existence going all the way back to the Big Bang, which is itself contingent upon something.(Antony Flew, Philosophical Dictionary New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979, 242.)

for a basic explanation of necessity and contingency go here.

God, by definition, cannot be contingent. This same atheist on my board who argued the parsimony thing also tried to content that God doesn't have to be necessary. He also said "just because you think a being is necessary..." Of course he makes several mistakes:

(a) thinking my reasons for this are simply that whatever one believes must be true, so the lie campaign always works eventually to sucker some people.

(b) that god is "a being" he even said "If you think god is an abstract concept then I would actually believe in him. (duh).

these are simple basic axiomatic things that anyone should know before going into a philosophical discussion about God. This just highlights the fact that atheists spend so much of their time dreaming up stupid loopholes in the bible and trying to deny major philosophers that they don't know the basics of God talk.

God is necessary, by definition. That's what the word "God" means as it is used in modern theology. In literal Anglo Saxon of the dark ages it meant something like "superior chief" but that is etymology. That was a long time ago. as the word has come to be used in modern theological parlance it refers to the thing at the top of the metaphysical hierarchy: that which nothing greater than can be conceived; necessary being.

Thus because God is necessary and not contingent, he cannot be the subject of empirical proof.


(2) God is not a thing along side other things in creation, but is the basis of reality: God is being itself.

If we could say the universe contains trees and oranges, and mutt dogs and swizzel sticks and mud pies and jelly and fish and comic books and flt tires and roofs and taxes and stupid people, and God, then they would have a point. What's wrong with this list? God is not just another thing. God created all that stuff and everything else. Nothing would exist without God. So God is not along side jelly and swizzle sticks in creation. As St. John of Damascus said "God exists on the order of Being itself." God is not a product of things in creation, god is the basis of all reality. Thus, God may not be treated as things in creation. God is not contingent because he' snot produced by a prior thing. He's not part of creation, the basis of it, so obviously he can't be given in sense data he can't be understood in a empirical way.

(3) God is eternal.

Because God always was, never came to be, is not dependent upon anything else for his existence, we can say that God, if there is a God, then God had to be. there is maybe. It's not a matter of maybe God might not have existed. God must be either necessary or impossible. this is what Harsthorne proved in this modal argument.

This is the kind of stuff that atheist can't handle because it proves their view is totally wrong a priori. So they are going vomit all over and deny that it means anything and say it's all hog wash. but they are so lazy none of them will ever go look it up. If they would bother too they would see immediately that serious thinker considers the possibly that God might be continent. Even atheists serious thinkers know better than this (but of course not the know nothings on CARM or other atheist dens of stupidity).


Because the concept of God is that of eternal necessary being, God cannot be contingent and since empirical things can only be contingent, God cannot be the object of empirical study.

they never answer any of this. the only think they ever do with it say it's its hog wash, vomit their illiteracy on it and run away.

These arguments prove conclusively and beyond question that God cannot be empirical. Since God cannot be empirical it makes prefect since that there is obvious evidence for god in the starts lining to spell out his name or any of that nonsense. it might just be that God is parsimonious in some sense, but not in the sense of being more scientific, which is I think the way most atheists use it (because they don't know any better).

All of these things require a whole education. These guys are usually too lazy to click on a single link. They would rather ridicule and insult intelligence than to actuality study the products of it.

One final note: it is not a contradiction on my part to say that my Parsimony argument might offer rational warrant to believe, but that God is not a subject of parsimony. I said there is a distinction in types. What atheists mean by it and what I mean by the term are two different things. My argument turns upon being an elegant idea, so God need not be empirical to be judged elegant; all one need know is a concept

Challenge: Describe the Gospel using no Standard Christian Langauge

 


This is not an indication that I actually think we should abandon talking about God. Nor does it mean that I'm giving up Chrsitain doctrine of any kind. It might be a useful exercise. I think Dave had a good point that Christian language has become stigmatized. What do you think of when I say "Jesus love you and a plan for your life?" I think of you think "ho hum." Dave put up a  challenge at a chruch he attends sometimes he told me about it. I said Ok I'm going to try it. It's just an experiment. To describe the Gospel with no standard Christian words about God or Jesus or being saved or anything. Here's Dave's thinking:

"Dave" on peaceful turmoil blog

Why Western Christians Need "no God."

What do you think of when someone mentioned the God of the Bible?

A fickle sky deity worshiped by a collection of allied city states from Bronze age Palestine that merged to become the ancient nation of Israel? Perhaps an image of an old white haired sovereign on a celestial throne?

Perhaps you think instead of socially conservative religious leaders and their political allies and the things they say in the name of God. Or various injustices of history committed in the name of God.

If you do think of such things, you are far from alone. But like my unsolicited advice to Western convert Buddhists (1), one can ask what may be obscured by such reactions.

This kind of reaction is something many Christians seem to be at a loss over. Here is one take on that loss.

All human knowledge and experience is mediated through and embedded within symbols and analogies, especially in the shape of metaphors. Knowledge and experience is also mediated by and has embedded within it moral (how things are/how things ought to be) and emotional content. This is all woven together into narratives or stories at the level of individuals, communities, and societies.

We are more likely to trust someone whose narrative has a structure and interpretation lines up with our own in key ways, or with whom we have more intimate social and emotional connections. Its reciprocal. If I trust you, I trust your worldview. If I trust your worldview, I trust you.

Religion offers, among others things, a communal response to the spiritual impulse (seeking connection and purpose through integration into higher orders of structure and meaning) rooted in an existential narrative (a story about why we exist). This narrative takes the forms of myth, a story connecting an ahistorical origin of a people ("Long ago..." "Before the world began...") to a moral vision of the contemporary world -- how the world is, ought to be, and will be.

In many contemporary, industrial, post-Enlightenment societies the symbols and images associated with Christianity, its mythology, and its ritual institutions have become problematic.

For those with little knowledge of the religion itself or of its theology and history, the symbols, images, and references to Biblical and non-Biblical stories of faith hold little meaning except for their association with the most visible aspects of Christianity such as televangelism, homophobic and sexist political tirades, and the sex abuse scandals.

For those with limited but intense exposure, such as people who grew up in a socially conservative and fundamentalist evangelical form of Christianity and abandoned it as ignorant, deceptive, or intolerant, the moral/emotional association with the symbols, images, and stories can be downright toxic.

Then there is the fact that some symbols and images and allusions to Biblical stories are so ubiquitous that the over-exposure dilutes anyone but the loudest/most visible interpretations, feeding into and reinforcing the views already described. Add in that this does not come with the widespread and developed sense of cultural literacy needed to make sense of or engage these ubiquitous elements the social smog surrounding Christianity becomes even thicker.

So is Christianity doomed? What can the Church try that it hasn't pursued already? Jump below the break to find out. (read more of Dave's essay)

 Dave is an anthropologist. That explains it right? Here goes:

The nature of this religion thing is to discover and understand the basic problem or set of problems at the hart of being human. Human life is fraught with a problematic nature but it seems like the general brunt of our problems go back to the basis of being human. We are moral, we have a sort time then we are gone. While we are at it we are prevented form enjoying it not so much because we are too weak to get what we want but becuase we can enjoy what we have since we are wrestles and board and always worried.

 Humans come to different ideas about the nature of the problem: imbalance with nature, sin that separates us form some sort of ultimate power, our relation to the stars or to higher powers, the size of our brains, or whatever. Yet the point is we all come to some idea that that there is a problem in "the human condition." A lot of it is grounded in human nature; greed, seeking power, violent nature, narrow minds. We seek a vantage point which can make sense of it it all and give us a way to overcome the constraints. Many find that sense of vantage point in the ultimate transfomrative experience. Studies show that such experience is effective in eliminating our depression, fear of death, sense of want or sense of meaninglessness.

These sorts of issues are not dwelt upon in our society today as they were several years ago. In the 60s it was considered all important to find a sens of identity, today that sense is ready made in the social class, ownership  of possessions and knowledge of technology. I still think that if we scratch the surface those issue are just beneath.

The sense of transformation is mediated through narrative and ritual. This is where the specifics of the Christian tradition come into it.  But before getting into that (which has to be spoken in standard Chrsitain parlance) we still need to cover certain ground, the nature of the transformation. Transformative effects can be found in many traditions but in the Christian tradition it's very specific. Of cousre transformation is related to what Paul Tillich called "the object of ultimate concern." This is exactly what it sounds like the thing we care about the most. It's not a material possession. We can't say our motorcycle is the object of ultimate concern even if that's where we put our focus. Obviously the ultimate concern is death, or perhaps eternal life. Tillich also links this sense with Being itself. That is to say the aspect of being that is eternal and necessary and that produces or creates all the contingent temporary aspects.

The transformative effect comes from a particular attention to the eternal necessary aspect of being. That particular relationship to the eternal necessary aspect of being is one of a realization of dependence upon that aspect, and a conscoiusness awareness of the sense of love connected to the consciousness of that aspect. This sense of love fosters commitment on our part; commitment to goodness and to values associated with such positive aspects of being.

At this point it's all been pretty veg and general. I think the price we pay for an economy language that shucks off baggage and tired images is that it become general and veg. That's not necessarily a failure of the experiment. It may not be possible to speak without standard phrases and not be veg and general. From this point one must introduce the concept of God and the Bible and Jesus if one's discourse is to verge into specificity.

 How did I do?

Is it a Contradiction To Beleive in Something that is Beyond our Understanding? (part 2)

In the comment section of the article "Demand for Empirical Evidence of God is Unfiar and Misleading," I had an exchange with Stewpid Monkey. this is a long exchanged and we covered some things that I think need to be said to deal with the issues brought up in the part of this article. So here is part of that exchange.

Meta: 1. "That is no contradiction. One can always move toward the infinite even if one never adhesives it. Besides that's not counting what happens after death. Once we are with God face to face (so to speak) we might told everything."

SM--First of all, I don't get your first sentence. Or rather I understand the spirit of what your saying, I don'think you have the proper verbage. Second, you answer is a non answer. You still haven't proven an "after life".

Meta: That's what "architect" thing in my spell check that rewrites posts. I don't always catch it.Instead of "adhesives" it should say "advances." We can advance toward an infinitely distant goal and never achieve it.

 2. "He can tell us.All talk of God is analogical. Even if we don't really know it works to follow the course of the saints and mystics.It's empirically proven by psychology studies to work in that it produces a better life."

SM---WHAT? You make no sense here.

Meta: what I said makes perfect sense. If we don't know for sure that X is true of God but it works to follow it then it's ratioanl to follow it. It makes sense to do what works. Many empirical psychological studies show that having religious experiences, if one is blessed to have them, do affect people in ways that make their lives better than the lives of those who don't have them.

SM: "My question was how do you know what an unknowable (beyond your understand) diety wants. Your statement doesn't answer that."

Meta: Yes it does:

(1) We now by special revelation. God tells us so through the prophets and Apostles..

(2) People have experiences that are taken to be experiences f the divine. there are various reason to take them s such. I can go into that but I wont now. Given those reasons, look at what became of them as a result we see those experiences are very good for us. So ti works to follow the assumption that such experiences are those of the divine.

(3) The claims to underestimating are place holders. That's what we are saying when we say "they are analogical." They are analogy to the divine by comparing we know to what we don't know.

(4) obviously we can know somethings of the divine but not exhaustively. I've made this analogy before. Nuclear physics is beyond my understanding; but I do it exits and basically what its about. what I know about it is so elementary it's not false to say it's beyond my understanding.

what are the freaked out by this concept?



SM:"And what has been proven by psychological studies? Patients given sugar pills for diseases have worked as well. It's called a placebo effect. This does nothing to strengthen your stance."

Meta: that is hardly the summum bonum of psychology of religion.Placebo requires expectation; religious experiences are often totally unexpected. so that doesn't explain them away.

what they prove is that experiences of a type historically associated with God, aka "Mystical" are good for you and the result of having is it radically transforms one's life.
3. Your third and fourth answers to my comments run hand in hand. you state, "that is doesn't follow. Not even a logical statement. That's like saying "If we don't know what started the big bang expansion then we can't know anything about big bang." There are lots of things we know something about even though we don't know all.

that part that you don't put in quotes was the gist of my comment. you said: "If one aspect of your God is unknowable, then all aspects are unknowable."that is what I'm saying is BS. If one aspect is unknowable that certainly doesn't mean the whole is unknowable and did not say that.

SM:"---The big difference between your big bang anology and god are horribly incorrect."

Meta: why?

SM: "I will sum up the rest of your answers to my questions simply because they run together. Your example is incorrect simply becasue at no point have I said that the universe is a sentient being."

Meta: come on screw your head on straight. that has to do with an analogy. no analogy has to be totally correspondent in every single way with the thing it analogizes.

SM:"So yes, in that sense, we can know somethings about something but not everything. When it comes to the xian god (or any god for that matter), you are talking about a living thinking being. They problem that presents itself is that your gods who it is and what it is are tied together. As a being made of matter, I have my physical self and my abstract self that is based on the physical aspect. I.e. my mind is a product of my brain. What you are trying to pass off as truth is a mind existing without any physical entity."

Meta: that's a totally different matter. that's a totally separate issue form the analogies above. Now you have backpedaled dropping the assertion that to fail to know one this is to fail to know the anything.


SM:"This is impossible. I say impossible not with absolute knowledge, but functional practical knowledge."

Meta: what is? your statement is unclear. Are now back to saying that if we don't know everything single thing about something we can't know everything? that's ludicrously wrong. I've illustrated in many ways that it's wrong.


I do not know much about physicist but I do what it is that it exits.

ditto theory of m1 and m2

ditto string theory, ect ect


SM:"Ever see a disembodied mind? I don't think so. You said my statement is illocical, ( if one part of god is unknowable, then all of him is). This is a valid and logical argument."

Meta: No it's not. It's what atheists call "arguemnt from ignorance." I've answered in previous blog pieces.

(1) you are basing that entirely upon our sample of reality. Our sample of reality is based upon this plant and a bit of the moon and finds from long distances done by different types of telescopes. In other all scheme of things we are totally ignorant.

the rest of reality is huge evne if it' just our space/time. If it also consists of a multiverse infinite space/time continuum each one separate from the others we can never know what's out there. To then say that our little limited perspective is all here can be is absurd.

(2) you are begging the question to assume that just becuase biological life is that way that all forms fo thought would be that way too.

(3) God is not a biological life form so why expect him to be that way?

(4) there is evident of universal mind in panpsychism and the problem of temporal beginning and other areas.



SM:"You are just sidestepping the question by saying I am wrong or don't understand."

Meta: LOL. Saying your wrong is not side stepping it's direct clash. Try to learn something about argumentation!

7:27 AM

SM: "Once again, god's what he is is the same as who he is. There is no difference. You cannot claim knowledge of one and non knowledge of the other."

Meta: that's a meaningless atheist propaganda phrase. All you are really saying is 'let me do my reductionism thing so my straw man idea of God is the only valid one so I can have something to attack.

Your assertion of God as "what he is and who he is" comes from an understanding of Thomism, Thomas Ananias, the idea that God's existence is his essence. Nothing about that the puts God under the microscope and means that we have to have exhaustive knowledge about him or we can't know a single thing including his existence. that's a just a ridiculous notion.

anytime you say "Xi s beyond my understanding' you are saying "I know X exists." That's part of knowing it's beyond your understanding. That phrase does not and cannot mean 'I don't a know a single thing about it including its' existence."

one must know at least that one doesn't know.

You are also overlooking compete the other half of the equation. The full statement is that left brain collapses in on itself when you try to make that the only form knowledge.We need both left and right and experience of God is right brain that's what we need for understanding God.

from that we construct place holders which are analogies that bridge the gap somewhat by comparing what we don't know to what we do know.

the kind of knowledge of God that we have directly is inactive right brain thinking, experience first hand. Intellect, book knowledge, things that can be quantified, as people said in the oughts "not so much."

SM:"Your last sentence has no bearing. We cannot conduct experiments on your supposed god."

Meta: We don't have to. That's not the only form of knowledge


SM: "As far as observations and knowing something intellectually; most people believed that more heat escapes from your uncovered head during winter months. Hell, it sounds intellectually viable and is sound in common sense. It's absolutely false."

Meta: that is argument from analogy. arguemnt from analogies is not proof.




Meta:You are confused. You can know something about a thing and not know all about it. You can know it experimentally and not know it intellectually."

that is absolutely true. We know that's the case because we can do it all the all the time. Left brain right brain kind of stuff. There is a right brain. I know atheists are scared to death of feelings and experiences but that is a valid from of knowledge. For examples that's the only way we know we are loved. mot atheist don't like love and think it's BS. that's because they are afraid of right brain knowledge.

I've been told by a neurologist that there is no evidence that left brain brain thing applies to all forms of thinking. Yet it's a good metaphor for these types of knowledge.

7:29 AM