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
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- 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
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