[Use Of Weapons]

Gem Windcaster, on Aug 20 2009, 12:50 PM, said:

jitsukerr, on Aug 20 2009, 09:45 AM, said:

Gem Windcaster, on Aug 19 2009, 03:00 PM, said:

As the difference in philosophy is vast on core level, one has to find common ground in the fact that there is not a 'correct perception', but rather correct data; but also especially that the data itself is never completely distinguishable from the point of view from where it was gathered. This is not more strange than describing the same events in different languages renders different meanings. However if one is caught up in the differences instead of seeing the similarities, one cannot hope to understand the events at all; instead the perception of the event is distorted. Instead the differences should be seen as a means to understand different aspects of the same events, and will eventually increase the understanding of the events. So in fact the different accounts serves as two possible scenarios, and intersected those scenarios will be the conduit to understanding the events. However, to intersect the various scenarios, one has to learn the languages and concepts used in them, that much should be apparent.

This smacks of the worst sort of post-modernist liberalism (a wider debate than this one). The search for objective truth is emphatically _not_ the province of navel-gazing philosophers or effete English graduates deconstructing texts in an attempt to fit them around their own preconceptions and prejudices. Science cannot be deconstructed in this way (and attempts to do so are completely laughable: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/archiv...okal-hoax.html)

"Sokal" said:

"What concerns me is the proliferation, not just of nonsense and sloppy thinking per se, but of a particular kind of nonsense and sloppy thinking: one that denies the existence of objective realities,"

WTF! Where did I say you can deconstruct science by searching for objective truth. If anything my above post agrees that science is not objective. Instead your criticism could be pointed at my counterparts in this debate. My use of objectiveness in my previous post was simply as a concept in the mind with which to compare the different viewpoints. Nor do I mean that intersecting the different scenarios would render an absolute truth, but rather the understanding of each other, so we can coexist. I'm not even sure I believe there are such a thing as objective truth, but if there is, we most likely won't find it right here and now, on this Earth.

For crying out loud, I know I can be pretty hard to get sometimes, but jeez, at least try.

1. I did say that your post "smacked of" (i.e. could be related in tone to) attempts to deconstruct science by post-modernists. I did not say that it was in fact doing so.

2. Nevertheless, looking closely at your post, it IS in fact doing so. I quote: "one has to find common ground in the fact that there is not a 'correct perception' ", and also " but also especially that the data itself is never completely distinguishable from the point of view from where it was gathered" are quite blatant attempts to interpret scietific data in the light of a relativistic (non-objective) framework. Dressing it up with pseudo-scientific terms doesn't change that. And attempting to use 'frame-of-reference' arguments (which is how I interpret the latter quote) is a wilful misunderstanding of relativity, which appears (to me, at least) to be invoked out of context in order to justify your position that there is not an objective reality.

3. "If anything my above post agrees that science is not objective." AGREES? With whom are you agreeing? My post above, containing the Sokal reference, is an emphatic denial of your position. If you think that science is not objective, then you are certainly not agreeing with me, or with my post, and I am left confused as to with whom it is that you are agreeing. Yourself?

4. "My use of objectiveness in my previous post was simply as a concept in the mind with which to compare the different viewpoints." Equating objectivity with relativism doesn't lead to the conclusion that objectivity is impossible. It leads to the conclusion that you don't actually understand what scientific objectivity is. Perhaps this is a difference in the definition of terms, but there's certainly some confusion here.

[Use Of Weapons]

cauthon, on Aug 20 2009, 03:50 PM, said:

Without going into the 'it's not necesssary to have a god stuff' ... does the 'evidence' refute the existence of a creator? Imho, it does not. Saying that it is not necessary is a step too far for me. I do understand why science will not have a god in the equation, but I fail to see why we cannot do the research and state our theories, without make claims that can only be supported by an OR mechanism. Which, essentially, is a human invention to scale down the # of options.

What would it take for you to accept that there is a creator? If a divine being stepped up and showed you how it was done, would you accept it? Or would you say, well, no, sorry, but, you see, this theory can explain what we see, so you did not do this, and we do not accept that you might have?

This is the crux: that the burden of proof rests with the party proposing that there is a creator, not that those on the opposite side have to attempt to do the impossible, and disprove the existence of something. It is akin to my saying, 'You have not presented any evidence that will convince me that there is not an enormous flying teapot on the other side of the sun, and, in the absence of your proving that it doesn't exist, I will continue to believe in it.'

Direct evidence of a creator would of course support the existence of a creator. But the key word in that sentence is 'evidence' -- scientifically verifiable, repeatable evidence obtained through well-designed experiment. The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.

[MTS]

Quote

The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.

This is now my favourite quote.

[cauthon]

jitsukerr, on Aug 20 2009, 05:39 PM, said:

Direct evidence of a creator would of course support the existence of a creator. But the key word in that sentence is 'evidence' -- scientifically verifiable, repeatable evidence obtained through well-designed experiment. The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.

Well, describe to me what you would like to see then. We still have to deal with the 'anything sufficiently technically advanced is indistinguishable from magic' stuff ... so how would you scientifically validate proof handed to you by an entity that exists outside the material universe?

[Cougar]

Gem Windcaster, on Aug 19 2009, 03:00 PM, said:

Contrary to what you may think, it is not by default more or less rational to not believe in God than believing in God, i.e. rationality is not relative to the amount of belief, but instead relative to other factors, like self awareness, practicality, compartmentalization, critical thought, geometric thinking, integrity etc.

Although I'd tend to agree with what Jitsukker said regarding the general coherence of Gems ideas, I've long since ceased to try to argue against them in general, since it's rather like trying to score a goal in a net with only 1 post and no ball, I am interested in the above statement.

From a purely evidential POV I can not see how a belief in a creator god is rational at all, indeed faith itself is 'irrational' by it's nature. Now people can have faith or not regardless of the rationality - that's a personal choice, but when we start to engage in the talk of rationality using words like 'data' etc. you must accept that what you are doing is playing by the rules of a certain game where religion, god or faith has no more privileged a place than any other idea and in these terms god is an entirely irrational concept.

I don't understand why religions of any type attempt to play science and even good chunks of philosophy at their own games because they utterly lack 'faith' as a concept and instead attempt to deal with objective reality (as defined by their own rules). Once we are into the language of rationality, data, proof, demonstrating etc religion loses. The crazy thing is that if you are a proper Christian none of this should matter since God makes a habit of saying you have to have faith, I'm not going to prove myself to you.

This post has been edited by Cougar: 20 August 2009 - 04:25 PM

[Cougar]

cauthon, on Aug 20 2009, 04:53 PM, said:

Well, describe to me what you would like to see then. We still have to deal with the 'anything sufficiently technically advanced is indistinguishable from magic' stuff ... so how would you scientifically validate proof handed to you by an entity that exists outside the material universe?

Come on, this is an intellectually spurious train of logic:

"You can't prove that there isn't evidence somewhere that the creator god has provided that if tested, in a manner we can't perceive or, as yet don't comprehend, may or may not prove it exists."

[Epiph]

Cougar, on Aug 20 2009, 11:24 AM, said:

I don't understand why religions of any type attempt to play science and even good chunks of philosophy at their own games because they utterly lack 'faith' as a concept and instead attempt to deal with objective reality (as defined by their own rules). Once we are into the language of rationality, data, proof, demonstrating etc religion loses. The crazy thing is that if you are a proper Christian none of this should matter since God makes a habit of saying you have to have faith, I'm not going to prove myself to you.

Agreed. Faith is fundamental to religious and spiritual belief, and is fundamentally in opposition to logical proofs. Specifically with Christianity, it would be pointless to prove the existence of God, because once you have proof, you don't need faith, and possession of faith or the lack thereof decides whether you go to Heaven or Hell.

[Silencer]

Reopened. Still don't know why it was closed, I'll keep you updated.

Enjoy, keep it civil.

[stone monkey]

cauthon, on Aug 20 2009, 03:50 PM, said:

Of course, 'scientific' data is not always objective. In fact, mostly it is not. People make a claim, find arguments that support it, and publish. Rarely do they look for arguments that do not support the claim.

And neither are any arguments for the deity. Scientific data does at least attempt to reduce the number of ways in which it is subjective. It should come as no surprise that a scientist looks for data support to their hypothesis; of course they do, why would they not? Why would anyone propose a hypothesis and then go out of their way to disprove it? (It'd be like you trying to prove there's no God...) And if they don't find data to support their original hypothesis they publish that they didn't find it and why that may be the case. Sometimes that is because the original hypothesis was mistaken or incomplete. Sometimes it's because the experiment was badly designed. Sometimes it's because the observation could not be made with the desired accuracy.That's how science works.

Quote

Without going into the 'it's not necesssary to have a god stuff' ... does the 'evidence' refute the existence of a creator? Imho, it does not. Saying that it is not necessary is a step too far for me. I do understand why science will not have a god in the equation, but I fail to see why we cannot do the research and state our theories, without make claims that can only be supported by an OR mechanism. Which, essentially, is a human invention to scale down the # of options.

The evidence available to us certainly looks like it refutes the existence of the seven-day, animals emerging in their present forms, global flooding kind of creator described in the Bible (it would also seem to rule out the giant turtle who churned the universe into existence, from Hindu mythology. But I'd hazard a guess you're not too invested in having that one proven... Which leads us down a whole other fork in the discussion. Why are we so fixed on proving the existence of the Judeo-Christian deity? I'll answer the question: because that's the one you happen to believe in...) That may be a step too far for you. But as you're starting from the position that God exists, to paraphrase Mandy Rice Davies: you would say that, wouldn't you?

One could also argue that the supernatural is the human invention. It how we flawed and limited beings try to make sense of the things we don't understand. We make up irrational and/or nonexistent beings in order to explain them. We posit intent where there is none. But another way we try to understand the world around us is to do science. Which has proven remarkably effective at giving us a picture of the universe which is consistent and testable. And as we've come to understand more and more things about how the current state of the universe has come to be, the gaps in our knowledge which supernatural causes can logically (if not imo rationally) be supposed to fit have got smaller. In other words, if we know how it works or came to be then God, most assuredly, did not do it then and is not doing it now.

If you don't have a prior hypothesis to investigate how the hell are you going to do any research on it? And if you're going to include supernatural factors within your hypothesis, how do you measure them? And which ones do you include?

Quote

What would it take for you to accept that there is a creator? If a divine being stepped up and showed you how it was done, would you accept it?

That would be a very good start... As most other sane atheists would agree, if a divine being wandered up to me and could show me how it was done I'd happily believe them. I'd have more than a few questions for them about what the hell took them so long to announce themselves in such a plain manner. And why on earth they set the universe up to look like they hadn't done it that way. And I'd still be very unlikely to worship them, but I would believe in their existence... Leading on from my parenthetical fork; what would it take for you to accept that the hypothetical creator was not actually the one in which your particular faith believes? For all you know this creator could be Ahura Mazda, or Shiva, or Zeus... They've all got books and creation myths...

But that's not about to happen, is it? Divine beings seem to be notoriously shy about providing unambiguous evidence of their existence; merely speaking inside individual's heads (not the most reliable of methods) and/or inspiring them to write allegorical texts that bear little semblance to the real world.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 24 August 2009 - 01:34 AM

[Cold Iron]

cauthon, on Aug 21 2009, 12:50 AM, said:

Cold Iron, on Aug 20 2009, 01:53 PM, said:

Good article, but it's in a different league to this discussion. Where is this data that supports a religious account of reality - presumably gathered by the religious community and thus coloured by it's preconceptions - that stands in opposition to the scientific data? The bible? This is a far cry from the debate about humanity's capacity to interpret objective truth.

The bible and religious texts in general are important tools for understanding the universe only insofar as they are tools with which one can dissect the way in which understanding is coloured by our irrational nature. It does not stand in direct conflict with scientific observations. The claim is misguided and the attempt at justification confused.

Of course, 'scientific' data is not always objective. In fact, mostly it is not. People make a claim, find arguments that support it, and publish. Rarely do they look for arguments that do not support the claim.

I'm making no attempt to support or deny the objectivity of science - I'm simply saying that a religious text can not be considered to stand in opposition to direct observation. Regardless of the alleged subjectivity, there is no conflicting data that supports a traditional viewpoint. The proposition that a religious text can be considered as one such conflicting data set is simply unsupportable.

cauthon, on Aug 21 2009, 12:50 AM, said:

Without going into the 'it's not necesssary to have a god stuff' ... does the 'evidence' refute the existence of a creator? Imho, it does not. Saying that it is not necessary is a step too far for me. I do understand why science will not have a god in the equation, but I fail to see why we cannot do the research and state our theories, without make claims that can only be supported by an OR mechanism. Which, essentially, is a human invention to scale down the # of options.

What would it take for you to accept that there is a creator? If a divine being stepped up and showed you how it was done, would you accept it? Or would you say, well, no, sorry, but, you see, this theory can explain what we see, so you did not do this, and we do not accept that you might have?

As I've said, this is a language problem. You cannot have something create space-time, creation is a causal event that can only happen within space-time. It does not make sense to talk about something existing "before" the universe. It may be easy for us to imagine something before the universe, or outside the universe, but this is an invalid use of language and in reality we are simply imagining an extension of the universe. This is thus not only a debate with no answer, it is a debate that doesn't make sense. The concept of a creator as it is has come to be defined, quite simply, conflicts not only with the fundamental principles of modern physics, not only with every observation on the nature of reality over the last century but on logic itself. For a creator to have created the universe, time must have existed before the universe. As time is a part of the universe explaining how this could be true would be a neat trick, even for a divine being.

What would it take for you to accept that the creator has nothing to do with the universe and everything to do with humanity, and more specifically, you? If an original author of gospel explained to you the true depth of each scriptural metaphor and the beauty of a concept the increasing comprehension of which can empower each and every one of us to take better control of our lives and have a positive impact on the world, would you accept it? Or would you say, well, no, sorry, but, you see, I've been taught to cherry pick parts of the bible to interpret as literal truth, so you did not actually mean that when you wrote it, and we do not accept that you might have?

[Silencer]

Epiph, on Aug 21 2009, 04:41 AM, said:

Cougar, on Aug 20 2009, 11:24 AM, said:

I don't understand why religions of any type attempt to play science and even good chunks of philosophy at their own games because they utterly lack 'faith' as a concept and instead attempt to deal with objective reality (as defined by their own rules). Once we are into the language of rationality, data, proof, demonstrating etc religion loses. The crazy thing is that if you are a proper Christian none of this should matter since God makes a habit of saying you have to have faith, I'm not going to prove myself to you.

Agreed. Faith is fundamental to religious and spiritual belief, and is fundamentally in opposition to logical proofs. Specifically with Christianity, it would be pointless to prove the existence of God, because once you have proof, you don't need faith, and possession of faith or the lack thereof decides whether you go to Heaven or Hell.

See, this is where I don't get it. Having faith, is just another way of saying believe in what I'm telling you. EXCEPT, that this message ain't coming from a divine being, it's coming from people who wrote a book a couple of thousand years ago.
How many people interpret the Aeneid as a literal event? The gods interfering and suchlike? The 'Faith' clause is such an easy out to allow people to deny logical counters to any argument - "It's what I believe" is too easy an answer. Isn't it obvious, that if you are making up a religion, you would put in a clause that precludes doubt? That way it makes it more likely to spread and impossible to refute. You wouldn't do that if you were God. You wouldn't need to. Only a man would do that. Someone intent on controlling and deceiving you. By preventing questions with a pre-prepared answer, you circumvent doubt towards your religion. Especially when that religion is instilled into children from a young age from people that those children look up to and believe without question.
If I came up to you and told you I was a divine messenger from god, and said that if you doubted it you would go to hell, would you believe me?

[Epiph]

Silencer, on Aug 23 2009, 09:14 PM, said:

Epiph, on Aug 21 2009, 04:41 AM, said:

Agreed. Faith is fundamental to religious and spiritual belief, and is fundamentally in opposition to logical proofs. Specifically with Christianity, it would be pointless to prove the existence of God, because once you have proof, you don't need faith, and possession of faith or the lack thereof decides whether you go to Heaven or Hell.

See, this is where I don't get it. Having faith, is just another way of saying believe in what I'm telling you. EXCEPT, that this message ain't coming from a divine being, it's coming from people who wrote a book a couple of thousand years ago.
How many people interpret the Aeneid as a literal event? The gods interfering and suchlike? The 'Faith' clause is such an easy out to allow people to deny logical counters to any argument - "It's what I believe" is too easy an answer. Isn't it obvious, that if you are making up a religion, you would put in a clause that precludes doubt? That way it makes it more likely to spread and impossible to refute. You wouldn't do that if you were God. You wouldn't need to. Only a man would do that. Someone intent on controlling and deceiving you. By preventing questions with a pre-prepared answer, you circumvent doubt towards your religion. Especially when that religion is instilled into children from a young age from people that those children look up to and believe without question.
If I came up to you and told you I was a divine messenger from god, and said that if you doubted it you would go to hell, would you believe me?

Well said. I wasn't trying to endorse faith or make an apology for the faithful, just expounding the wall that I run into time and again when arguing with the faithful. I rarely argue over the existence of god, because it always seems like such a futile endeavor, but in arguing with literal religious interpretations, you inevitably hit this infuriating wall.

I do find myself fascinated by faith, by both the willful blindness it engenders and the strength of vision it lends. I definitely find myself envious of the peace of mind it gives. But in the end, I'll take my uneasy existentialism over self-delusion any day.

[Silencer]

Indeed. My favourite blocking issue is the Big Bang.

"I think god created the universe."
"I think the universe exploding from superdense matter is a better theory."
"But what about God? Isn't that better?"
"Well...why do you think that?"
"It explains everything!"
"Well, it doesn't, to me. In fact, I have an issue with how an omnipotent being could possibly exist, given the implications of space-time discontinuity that implies."
"What do you mean?"
"How did God create everything?"
"He just...did! What created the matter in your superdense universe, then? Huh? HUH?"
"Oh, I don't know."
"Obviously it was God!"
"Er...so what created God then?"
"Nothing, silly! He's GOD!"
"..."

Because, you know, more unreasonable for mass to have simply been there, either from an eternal cycle of compression and explosion, or somehow else, than a metaphysical being that also created everything but wants us to take it on faith.
This is where science and religion have issues. Science just doesn't know what came before the Big Bang. Christians claim nothing came before God. I don't see how it can be that nothing can come before God, but something has to come before the Big Bang/the matter has to be created.

That was a real conversation, btw, held in a high school English class. XD
Cut down for brevity.

[Epiph]

Heh. My mom was telling me recently that she discarded her agnosticism at age 10 in favor of Deism (granted, agnostic at 10 in the 50s is pretty impressive...but it was California) because she realized that something had to cause the Big Bang. I just managed to shut my mouth and avoid an argument with her.

[Cold Iron]

The interesting part is going to be unravelling the impact of discontinuous space-time on early universe physics.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2032...is-made-of.html

[cauthon]

Silencer, on Aug 24 2009, 05:04 AM, said:

Indeed. My favourite blocking issue is the Big Bang.

"I think god created the universe."
"I think the universe exploding from superdense matter is a better theory."
"But what about God? Isn't that better?"
"Well...why do you think that?"
"It explains everything!"
"Well, it doesn't, to me. In fact, I have an issue with how an omnipotent being could possibly exist, given the implications of space-time discontinuity that implies."
"What do you mean?"
"How did God create everything?"
"He just...did! What created the matter in your superdense universe, then? Huh? HUH?"
"Oh, I don't know."
"Obviously it was God!"
"Er...so what created God then?"
"Nothing, silly! He's GOD!"
"..."

Because, you know, more unreasonable for mass to have simply been there, either from an eternal cycle of compression and explosion, or somehow else, than a metaphysical being that also created everything but wants us to take it on faith.
This is where science and religion have issues. Science just doesn't know what came before the Big Bang. Christians claim nothing came before God. I don't see how it can be that nothing can come before God, but something has to come before the Big Bang/the matter has to be created.

That was a real conversation, btw, held in a high school English class. XD
Cut down for brevity.

Up to the point where we know what came before the big bang -- which we cannot, given that it would be outside our universe -- I think both points are equally valid. I concur that it is hard to see that a being could exist before anything else. OTOH, having energy/matter come out of nowhere is just as hard. Even given the quantum mechanistic approach, where we just 'lost' enough anti-matter, it just seems equally unfeasible.

[Silencer]

Indeed, I agree. But I like arguing things down to that point, as it proves that certain people have serious issues with how reliable faith is. The difference being that science doesn't offer an easy-out. Religion does.

[Cold Iron]

cauthon, on Aug 24 2009, 07:02 PM, said:

Up to the point where we know what came before the big bang -- which we cannot, given that it would be outside our universe -- I think both points are equally valid. I concur that it is hard to see that a being could exist before anything else. OTOH, having energy/matter come out of nowhere is just as hard. Even given the quantum mechanistic approach, where we just 'lost' enough anti-matter, it just seems equally unfeasible.

This is still syntactically incorrect, energy did not "come out of nowhere" - there was literally no where for it to come out of. We are not simply discussing something outside our universe in the same sense of outside a box because by definition, everything is inside the box. There is no meaning to the phrase outside the universe, no frame of reference, no interaction, no causality, no time, no place, no emptiness. It's not "hard to see" an existence before time, nor unfeasible - it's oxymoronic.

This post has been edited by Cold Iron: 24 August 2009 - 10:58 AM

[stone monkey]

The "lost" antimatter comes from an asymmetry in the decay modes of a certain species of subatomic particle. It's very small, less than 1 in a million iirc, but it's there and it has been measured. That small excess of matter over antimatter provides us with the material universe we inhabit today. It's not a theoretical approach.

Questions about "before" the Big Bang are difficult as the concept of before implies that time (or more acurately Spacetime) existed, which it did not. Both space and time came into existence in the Big Bang.

The matter and energy coming out of nowhere is an issue, but further investigation may lead us to a point that tells us why that might be (or appear to be) the case. Simply assuming a deity did it is just giving up. And we human beings, despite all our many flaws, are better than that.

What we are is an ape that stood up and then walked off the savannahs a couple of hundred thousand years ago armed with a brain that had evolved for gossip, paranoia, thinking stuff up and running away from lions and used that brain to decipher the universe back to the smallest instants of time after it started. That is interesting and very cool. And it's our propensity for thinking stuff up and our other propensity to see intent in events that have none that leads us to be in the position of having this discussion.

[Epiph]

stone monkey, on Aug 24 2009, 06:13 AM, said:

What we are is an ape that stood up and then walked off the savannahs a couple of hundred thousand years ago armed with a brain that had evolved for gossip, paranoia, thinking stuff up and running away from lions and used that brain to decipher the universe back to the smallest instants of time after it started. That is interesting and very cool. And it's our propensity for thinking stuff up and our other propensity to see intent in events that have none that leads us to be in the position of having this discussion.

So much more inspiring and awesome than "God did it"!