Atheism: Love it or Leave it? - Part 3

[8wid]

^Why then you wouldn't be a non-theist, and besides ODIN IS GOD!!!!

 

[redhawk23]

What we know now will be eclipsed by what we know in 10, 50, 100, or 500 years. Who knows...ghosts may be alternate dimensional beings bleeding into our own dimension. We may discover time travel is possible. We may meet an alien species. We may discover an unlimited and renewable source of powerful energy. Who knows! It's exciting to think about and man has been writing and dreaming of science fiction for centuries.

It is interesting and useful to think about possibilities or even impossibilities.

Its quite another to insist that they are real.

 

[DBryan]

I'm gonna make all your heads explode. For people like me who have nothing better to but be masochists by seeking out argumentative crap.

I've been arguing on and off with a guy who follows the Alvin Platinga ontological 'modal logic' argument. Which is explained in this clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOTn_wRwDE0

He literally says at one point in this video...

"if its really true that its possible that I exist when b (the body) doesn't, from that it just follows I would say as the night and day that b and I are not the same thing".

And that's the entire argument in a nutshell. The very definition of circular reasoning.

I've been arguing with a guy for HOURS who thinks this stuff is flawless.

It started from arguing about natural laws and the supernatural.

We don't know everything. We can say that everything about our world and the universe that we know SO FAR is natural, with natural explanations for natural phenomena.

That very much depends on your definition of natural. If by natural you mean the empirical, you're dead wrong. Abstract objects, the laws of nature, ideas like truth, etc are all non-physical. If by natural you mean we only observe what is in our universe... well that's kind of redundant and doesn't exclude the supernatural from existing.

'The laws of nature' are what we use to explain natural phenomena - which ARE natural. What abstract objects are you referring to? I'm talking about natural phenomena here. We can explain how planets orbit stars due to the natural force of gravity, atoms come together to form molecules due to the natural occurance of covalent bonds, etc etc etc. All of the laws, forces, and mechanisms occur naturally and not supernaturally. We can remove god from the equation.

Have I not given you several examples in which they are observable? Atoms, the relationships between planets and the stars through the force of gravity? This concept that these laws are inaccessible seems to be a type of creationist argument that is not founded on fact. Maybe we're misunderstanding each other but it seems that you're trying to insert a 'middle man' (the supernatural or the abstract) into equations in which we already know they don't belong.

There is a misunderstanding here. I'm saying the laws are natural, but they're also abstract (non-physical). The laws themselves are abstract, though their effects are physical.
Another example of an abstract object is a number. Though it's different because numbers are necessary, unlike laws. Still the number itself is an abstract object.
We understand through our senses, but how do we know our senses give us true information? We need to appeal to logic, not science.

As I've explained previously on this comments page, logic and science use similar methods.

No they don't. Science uses logic as its basis (fleshed out in mathematics). Science presupposes logic. Logic is based on three axioms - law of identity, law of non-contradiction, and law of excluded middle.

This is an argument he got from Dr. William Lane Craig. I didn't even bother acknowledging that argument.

We observe and understand gravity. We observe and understand the gradation of species. We understand natural phenomena through empirical means. We do understand them using our senses. I'm failing to see where or why you're getting the supernatural from. Or why you think we can't observe natural laws when we clearly can.

But let me ask how you think that the universe came into existence through natural phenomena. If your answer is anything but "that question is illogical", it would behoove you to do some study in philosophy.

I don't know. Relatively very little is known about the origins of time, space, and matter, as well as how the first life arose. But instead of simply accepting that we do not have all the facts to make a truly informed conclusion about these subjects, monotheists choose to default to the same old supernatural explanations of the unknown. 'God did it'. Like when we did not know what lightning was, we made up Thor the lightning god.

That tells me you've never actually studied any theist arguments. We can never know about the origins of the universe through science because science can't measure anything before the natural world. No one is saying "God did it" because we don't know, we're saying "God did it because..." and then proceed to give many philosophical arguments. We REASONED our way there.
Also check this out for one of the most solid out there: watch?v=vGVYXog8NUg

And that video clip would come to dominate the argument. But I don't address it until a few comments later.

"We can never know about the origins of the universe through science because science can't measure anything before the natural world" - that is profoundly ignorant of the scientific method. It is like saying a detective cannot solve a crime if the crime took place before his investigation began. Detectives and scientists both use deduction. The big bang theory is backed up with observable evidence, such as the expansion of the universe, cosmic background radiation, etc.

It doesn't matter that the big bang took place billions of years before our existence. A theory is a scheme or system of ideas or statements held as an explanation or account of a group of facts or phenomena; a hypothesis that has been confirmed or established by observation or experiment, and is propounded or accepted as accounting for the known facts; a statement of what are held to be general laws, principles, or causes of something known or observed.

Just basically copying and pasting what a theory is in regards to science is for this guy. A theory doesn't always require that we can repeat it in an experiment in the here and now. For a theory such as a big bang that would be ridiculous. Just hoping that he knows that.

When you say 'We can never know about the origins of the universe through science because science can't measure anything before the natural world' you are making a number of assumptions. You are assuming there was a time in which the universe was not natural. You are assuming that there are limits to the progression of our knowledge in regards to the origin of the universe. You have no reasonable reason to assume either of these is true.

I finally get to watching the video he posted.

I paused the video you linked to to say one thing - I am very mistrustful of videos that disable comments. It is my experience that people who upload such videos have little interest in their view being challenged.

Turns out I was pretty much right on the money. Plantinga's 'modal logic' ontological argument is horrible. Absolutely horrible.

You realize that this ontological argument is complete nonsense, right? The premise assumed the conclusion to be true and vise versa. There are several leaps in logic. I have it paused at 4:12. I do not accept premise 1. Premise 2 fails - just because something is possible doesn't mean it exists. I understand that this is a 'metaphysical' argument, but it is refuted by many philosophers and it is just a simple question of logic. Premise 3 makes a giant assumption.

The conclusion doesn't assume the premises are true. The nature of a deductive argument is that the conclusion is implicit in the premises. The conclusion just states it explicitly. Everything after premise 1 follows S5 modal logic, so you can only disagree with premise 1. Remember MG involves being necessary. If a necessary being is possible, it follows it exists.
The problem is that it is logically impossible for premise 1 to be false.
Review 6:45 in that video.

Premise 1. It is possible that a unicorn exists.
Premise 2. If it is possible that a unicorn exists, then a unicorn exists in some possible world.
Premise 3. If a unicorn exists in some possible world, then a unicorn exists in all possible worlds.
Premise 4. If a unicorn exists in all possible worlds, then a unicorn exists in the actual world.
Premise 5. If a unicorn exists in the actual world, then a unicorn exists.
Conclusion: A unicorn exists.

Unicorns are not maximally great beings, nor are they even necessary beings, so your parody falls flat.

My parody does not fall flat.
You can go back through his entire argument and reconcstruct whatever definitions you want into the argument in order to make the argument that anything you can imagine exists.
If you don't understand that the argument is playing with definitions, you don't understand the argument as well as you think you do. Why should I accept that a 'maximally great being' exists?

Then what you're defining as "unicorn" is God. It's a maximally-great being which is therefore necessary. You can call a MG being whatever you want, but it's just going to be a relabeling of God. You're doing what Wolpert is doing here: watch?v=IAAHHP06iuY

But the argument does not prove 'maximally great properties', it does not prove a being, it does not prove that these things are necessary. The argument is ENTIRELY about the wording.

I've seen that clip before too. Craig says, "whatever begins to exist must have a cause", and this is again playing with words. It's a way of saying "god exists because god did not begin to exist". There is no reason to accept the "whatever begins" argument. Craig demonstrated that he takes all the conditions and "wraps" his version of god around it. In an other words, Craig asserts his god.

There's nothing that logically follows about the idea of the Universe being timeless therefore God. The other man's point, is that with Craig's type of reasoning you could put ANYTHING in place of God as an explanation and it wouldn't make a bit of difference. Craig then attributes the mythical computer to his god, by default admitting that's mythical too. Craig is compelled to twist into "god", because thats the conclusion he wants to reach.

Not that its a conclusion the argument points to. Craig was destroyed in that clip through sarcasm. And if you read between the lines you'd see the other guy is making fun of Craig's nonsensical definitions and assumptions in the first place.

If you think all it was was an ad hominem then you missed the point.
You're still missing the point - Craig places the attributes that he wants that fits his vision of his mythical being. Omnipotent, omniscient, necessary, etc. He can't prove any of it, he can't argue any of it logically. But he claims it exists.

A person can claim that there is a unicorn (not god, but something either physical or mythical or both, containing all or none or different properties from what Craig describes) and both Craig and this person would have the exact same proof. So that isn't renaming god. It's simply putting out an argument that accepts that god is mythical and there is just as much proof of his existence as there is Thor, unicorns, and Spider-Man.

In order to put Thor, unicorns, and Spider-Man in the place of God, you have to rip out all the attributes that make them what they are and replace them will all maximally-great greater-making properties. I don't understand how you're not seeing this. You're hollowing out the word and filling it with other attributes, thus renaming it as God.
It has not been refuted since it was put forth in the 1970s. Not once. People have misunderstood it, but no one has disproved it.

Getting VERY impatient with him at this point.

"you have to rip out all the attributes that make them what they are and replace them will all maximally-great greater-making properties"
Why?  If you can't demonstrate how you know these properties (such as immortality) exist, or why they exist, why they are necessary, how you know these things, then why? Why should I change the attributes of one mythical being for another?
"This has not been refuted" - you are wrong. It is easily refuted. You are seriously beyond delusional.

These are all just the highest degrees of things you agree exist, life, love, power, wisdom, etc. You admit they exist, and it's evident they exist.
Name one person who has written a scholarly refutation of the argument who doesn't completely misunderstand it. I haven't seen it. Most people who try and refute it don't understand modal logic.

The ontological argument has been destroyed for years by serious scholars and philosophers and Plantinga's argument that you sent me is just a different version of an old argument.

You really don't seem to understand the difference between necessary, contingent, and impossible. You also really don't seem to understand the basics of modal logic. Please go do some study on the matter.
As I said it is impossible for a non-maximally great being to exist because that would mean there are no great-making properties. This isn't an argument most people get at first, so study it. Also no one has been able to refute Plantinga's version (the one in the video I gave you).

No, man, seriously - I completely understand this argument. It is not the first time I have encountered it. YOU do not understand what I am saying. This term 'great-making properties' is just a made up definition. He is defining whatever he wants it to be, and then he is saying that it exists through circular reasoning. You are displaying some serious cognitive dissonance. How and why are there 'great making properties', whatever those are supposed to be? It's not explained.

Great-making properties are defined as those properties it is better to have than to lack. That's a very clear and precise definition. If you deny premise 1, you are implicitly denying that there are no properties it is better to have than to lack. Examples of GMP are love, power, intelligence, wisdom, etc.
It is much more plausible that MGPs exist than the negation. Putting a unicorn in shows you don't understand it. Again please study it. No one has refuted it.

Yes, that's how the video explained it too. Why call it 'great making properties'? Why not just call it 'basic positive ethics', that each and every human being has? The wording makes it sound better when attributed to god. The argument also conveniently throws in other attributes such as immortality, omniscient, etc. When does the mythical being who has these properties come into the equation?  By denying the first premise, all I am denying is that this being exists.

Because power, wisdom, etc, are not ethical in nature? And no human has great-making properties to their fullest degree.
You're not just denying the being exists, you're deny all great-making properties are better to have than not. Properties are not put in out of convenience, they're put it because they are greater-making properties, and a greatest possible being must have all of them to their fullest degree by definition.

Nothing I'm saying is getting through at all, is it? Why is it necessary for these properties to exist to the "fullest degree"? Does that mean that things like hate, anger, stupidity, exist to the fullest degree? Does that mean then, that there is an 'anti-God?'

You're just making statements now. "they're put because they are greater-making properties" - HOW DO YOU KNOW! For crying out loud. By definition?! YOU are defining it. You are not showing how you know or why its necessary that this thing exists.
I define excellent-making properties as x-ray vision, super strength, the ability to see into the future, a sense of justice and the american way. These must exist, therefore XCELLENT-MAN exists. BY DEFINITION HE MUST EXIST!

Hate, anger, and stupidity are not greater-making properties.
If properties such as life, love, power, wisdom, etc, exist then their fullest degrees would be immortality, omnibenevolence, omnipotence, omniscience, etc. Omnipotence is not a separate property from power, just the fullest degree of it.
X-ray vision is weak, why not all-seeing? Super strength? All-strength is better (omnipotence). Seeing into the future? That's timelessness. All just? XCELLENT-MAN sounds like God to me.

re you being deliberately obtuse? Are you just choosing not to see what my points are?
You are defining greater-making properties. You are. You are making the rules. I'm saying, if someone comes along and says, "no, you are wrong - there are not greater-making properties, but lesser-making properties". Or, ANY properties. Properties that are different from what you describe. Then you and he have the same evidence. What are you not understanding about that?

 

[DBryan]

Great-making properties are not arbitrary. For example it is greater to have agency than non-agency in a being because agency allows for things like power, love, wisdom, goodness, etc. They are better to have than to lack. It sounds like you're getting flustered and not thinking clearly here.

No, I'm thinking clearly, you're just basing your entire argument on the incredibly faulty 'logic' of Plantinga. Simply saying 'it is greater to have agency than non-agency in a being because agency allows for things like power, love, wisdom, goodness, etc' is the equivalent of saying, 'it is convenient to me for it to be true, therefore it is true'. You're just making descriptive statements rather than a logical argument.

I mean, I'm watching a clip of him, and he literally says "if its really true that its possible that I exist when b (the body) doesn't, from that it just follows I would say as the night and day that b and I are not the same thing".
It's gibberish. Absolute gibberish. The key word at the beginning of his statement is IF, but he just goes ahead and assumes that it is true. It's nonsense. It's the very definition of circular reasoning.

I'm not denying that properties like wisdom are better to have than not. I am denying that properties like immortality and omniscience exist. I can accept one, and not the other. You're saying "these properties must exist, therefore they must exist in a being" its circular reasoning. You insist on clinging to ridiculous language like "great making properties". WHY must these properties exist?

Don't you realize the whole argument is based on a game of definitions and circular reasoning? He asserts that if god is possible, therefore god is possible, therefore god exists. Each and every step assumes itself to be true. The premise assumes the conclusion is true. The conclusion assumes the premise is true.

Again it's not circular. Premise 1 is given and all premises flow from that using modal logic. The only way to defeat the argument is to show that maximal greatness is logically impossible, which again is itself an impossible thing to do.
Is this also circular?
1. All men are mortal
2. Socrates is a man
3. Socrates is mortal
The conclusion is built into the premises. This is the definition of a deductive argument.

here isn't any reason to even accept the first premise of his argument. Your example fails, because we can show that men are mortal.

The first premise must be accepted.
If MG is not possible, all properties entail ~MG
Therefore MG would entail ~MG
In other words, if MG is not possible, there are no great-making properties (no properties better to have than to lack). That's absurd.

If all unicorns are not possible, all properties entail ~unicorns.
Therefore unicorns would entail ~unicorns.
"if MG is not possible, there are no great-making properties (no properties better to have than to lack)" explain every part of this. Where does great, where does making, where does properties come into this. And then where does the being part come in. I have no reason to accept ANY of this.

He asserts that the universe was once a singularity and that nothing physical could exist there, therefore only god could have existed. He's defining god with whatever properties are convenient to the argument.

He's defining God as a maximally-great being. That is that God possess all qualities it is better to have than to lack to the greatest possible extent. One of those qualities is necessity.

Oh man.

 

[chaseter]

It is interesting and useful to think about possibilities or even impossibilities.

Its quite another to insist that they are real.

Insisting something does or doesn't, will or won't, can or can't exist is the same thing...pointless and fruitless.

As mentioned, who knows what we will discover. Science deals in probabilities, not absolutes. The probability may be low that ghosts don't exist but actual scientific method of research will never say ghosts cannot or do not exist.

 

[Dr.]

The conclusion is built into the premises. This is the definition of a deductive argument.

Actually, that’s (literally) the definition of “begging the question” (petitio principii) – a logical fallacy.

 

[Doctor Jones]

The less they know, the easier they are to fool. You'd have a much harder time convincing people that stories of ghosts and magic are real if their capacity for rationality and logic are higher.

Indeed.

 

[Marvolo]

Redhawk you have much more patience than I do.

 

[DBryan]

Actually, that’s (literally) the definition of “begging the question” (petitio principii) – a logical fallacy.

Here is his response to that point.

Begging the question is when the premises assume the conclusion and the premises are only valid if the conclusion is true. The conclusion flowing from the premises naturally is called a deductive argument.

Example: "Everything can be understood by science because science is the only way of knowing."
A->B and A is only valid because of B.

On your definition, all deductive logic would be invalid.

 

[redhawk23]

Redhawk you have much more patients than I do.

Yeah I really do keep long office hours don't I?

 

[Marvolo]

Yeah I really do keep long office hours don't I?

Fixed.

 

[Dr.]

Here is his response to that point.

Oh, I know what your associate meant. But his actual statement was technically inaccurate:

The conclusion is built into the premises. This is the definition of a deductive argument.

That’s wrong. To repeat: a conclusion that’s built into the premise is the definition of begging the question. If I was of a suspicious nature, I might assume that conflating a valid argument with an invalid one was a rhetorical calculation.

The important distinction is this: the conclusion of a valid argument is logically derived from the premises – not embedded within them. Thus…

All polar bears are black.
Brad Pitt is a polar bear.
Therefore, Brad Pitt is black.

This conclusion is bulletproof – provided that the premises are stipulated. Note that the conclusion is derived; in no way is it contained (surreptitiously or otherwise) within the premises. (And as you can see in this case, premises and conclusion don’t have to be true in order for them to be valid.)

This is not the same as begging the question. There, there is no logical derivation; rather, the conclusion simply reiterates one of the premises.

All polar bears are white.
Brad Pitt is white.
Therefore, all polar bears are white.

While the “conclusion” might actually be true, this construction fails as a valid argument because the answer is just reiteration.

The classic example of this is, indeed, the Ontological Argument. If god’s hypothetical “perfection” is inextricable linked to his “existence,” “existence” (as a conclusion – the very thing to be proved) gets a free ride as soon as “perfection” (the premise) is stipulated. And that’s the fallacious element. Petitio principii: conclusion assumed in the premise.

 

[DBryan]

His version of the ontological argument is the Plantinga version which is slightly different. It states that things like wisdom are properties and must exist to a maximally great point, and therefore they exist in a being, and if it is possible for these to exist maximally, then the being is possible, therefore God is possible, therefore he exists. That's pretty much the argument. It completely fails for the same reasons its just changing the wording.

 

[8wid]

This is why I am a Militant Atheist...

 

[8wid]

Bath Christian group's 'God can heal' adverts banned

 

[8wid]

 

[SV Fan]

All polar bears are white.
Brad Pitt is white.
Therefore, all polar bears are white.

Minor point, trying to explain logic you would have been better off making the last statement that

Therefore Brad Pitt is a Polar Bear(which could be a false statement)

 

[Dr.]

Minor point, trying to explain logic you would have been better off making the last statement that

Therefore Brad Pitt is a Polar Bear(which could be a false statement)

Well, in that particular example, I was illustrating the fallacy of building the desired conclusion into one of the premises (a self-reinforcing tautology). Typically, this maneuver is disguised by employing different wording in each case. But I wanted to make the fallacy clear; so I used the exact same wording.

 

[E-Man]

I usually stray away from religious threads, but I just had to vent a bit about something ******ed I saw on Facebook. One of my friends asked in his status, "Why are you single?" Some people gave answers that they weren't in a position to be in a relationship, haven't met anyone, etc. You know, the usual stuff.

What really puzzled me was how many people used the ridiculous, "God wants me to be single right now," crap, or some variation of it. If there is a god I really imagine that he's got better things to do with his time than plan whether or not people get laid. I doubt some omnipotent being would really waste all that power on something so silly and specific to humans beings on this planet.

 

[redhawk23]

Tell them to go to Christian Mingle, because "sometimes God wants you to take things into your own hands."

 

[E-Man]

Tell them to go to Christian Mingle, because "sometimes God wants you to take things into your own hands."

 

[NateHevens]

I usually stray away from religious threads, but I just had to vent a bit about something ******ed I saw on Facebook. One of my friends asked in his status, "Why are you single?" Some people gave answers that they weren't in a position to be in a relationship, haven't met anyone, etc. You know, the usual stuff.

What really puzzled me was how many people used the ridiculous, "God wants me to be single right now," crap, or some variation of it. If there is a god I really imagine that he's got better things to do with his time than plan whether or not people get laid. I doubt some omnipotent being would really waste all that power on something so silly and specific to humans beings on this planet.

I mean... when you believe that God micromanages your everyday life... that's sorta what happens.

I second redhawk23's suggestion. Post that, then take a screenshot of it and show us, or give us the link if it's open to the public...

 

[redhawk23]

So a few weeks ago I posted to tell you guys that as the un-official Resident Atheist Man for SLU's Interfaith Alliance, I was asked to pose our poster campaign with a caption that said "I'm an atheist, and I support interfaith work."

My posters were put up along side 2 other featuring a Muslim and a Hindu in several locations all over campus. Within 2 days all the posters with my face and caption were torn down, despite being stamped with aproval from the relevant University offices. The other 2 posters are still up at all of these locations.

I understand and respect that SLU is a Jesuit instituation (unless they want city tax credits to build a new stadium but that's another matter), but there are many non-Christian students and the poster was specifically for a chartered and university recognized interfaith group. I don't know who tore it down, if it was someone from the university, or my fellow classmates, but either way it's a d*** move.

Unless of course people just wanted to take my pretty face home with them.

 

[enterthemadness]

I...um.........can....I think people that say that "I'm single cause God wants me to." line is blaming God and not themselves. Ya know?

Personally if you are jogging, running, swimming...marathon, etc...I don't see anything run praying in your mind for any God or Mother Earth to give you strength to keep going. I do that...when I jog and on my 2nd mile. I've done 2 miles a day now three days in a row. Why do I pray while jogging to Mother Earth? Honestly, my mind is a bit weak...body is weak...until I'm more used to 2 miles and can do more, a part of me feels I need "help". Of course sometimes I think of the Rocky theme...that helps too.

 

[enterthemadness]

Sucks to read that, redhawk. You think by now...people would accept others beliefs.