This "not planned but caused" is a tough cookie to digest. To materialists, it is the bread and butter of their world view; to creationists it is incomprehensible. — god must be atheist

:up: I'd rather say: not planned but happened, which might be slightly easier to digest. Just because stochastic processes and nonlinear dynamic systems, for instance, are "incomprehensible" to someone (e.g. children, scientific illiterates, 'philosophical suicides', cretins, etc) isn't grounds for woo-of-the-gaps that only begs the question of one mystery by attempting to explain it with another mystery.

I'd rather say: not planned but happened, which might be slightly easier to digest. Just because stochastic processes and nonlinear dynamic systems, for instance, are "incomprehensible" to someone (e.g. children, scientific illiterates, 'philosophical suicides', cretins, etc) isn't grounds for woo-of-the-gaps that only begs the question of one mystery by attempting to explain it with a greater mystery. — 180 Proof

While (incomprehensible philosophical jargon) is incomprehensible, you're right, it is not grounds for woo-of-the-gaps. That is true, and nobody could argue that. But then again, nobody could argue that faith requires any grounds. It is FAITH, for crying out loud. It is a belief that needs no proof or reason, or reasoned explanation. There is not enough explanation in materialist theory that will take that away from the faithful. Faith is independent of facts and of reason, and therefore no amount of facts or reason will shake anyone's faith (unless they give in to reason).

Quite. Thus, Hitchens' Razor applies (re: "faith"-based assertions or ideas).

Quite. — 180 Proof

I refuse to stay quite! Who do you think you are to tell me that. (Indignantly refuses to believe the spell-checker, as it may be a device to check for spells and curses and other effects of faith.)

:lol:

There are abundant grounds to suspect this "what if" puts the cart before the horse like saying "what eyes are brought into existence by sight?" or "what if wings are brought into existence by flight?" :roll: — 180 Proof

I think the same objection could be raised against materialists; they argue that biological structures bring intelligence into being when the evidence suggests intelligence comes first. It depends on which end of the telescope you are looking through!

To materialists, it is the bread and butter of their world view; to creationists it is incomprehensible. — god must be atheist

It is not just creationists who believe there is intelligence in the natural world. Creationism is a particular school of thought.

materialists will insist that the combination of elements is not planned, but caused. — god must be atheist

Chemical do what chemicals do. There seems to be no limit to what they can do and the question is; Why are they doing this particular thing (creating physical 'life')?

Faith is independent of facts and of reason, and therefore no amount of facts or reason will shake anyone's faith (unless they give in to reason). — god must be atheist

Faith is not some vacuous belief that is without foundation. It is based on reason and intelligence but reason and intelligence that transcends the narrow bounds of academia. It is reason and intelligence that arise out of consciousness.
Art, music and literature cannot be reduced to what we normally call 'reason' but they are reasonable. They involve reason, order and intelligence on a more subtle level.

Even materialists state that it arises because it is caused, and not due to random chance. — god must be atheist

The theory of evolution is founded on chance. I know Dawkins would not agree but it is because it depends utterly on mutations coming up with useful combinations. These combinations are then - the theory goes - selected by Natural Selection. But the mutations are said to be random. If useful mutations don't randomly arise Natural Selection has nothing to select. The bottom line is that organisms are ultimately constructed by a random process because if randomness does not come up with the goodies nothing is going nowhere.

... materialists; they argue that biological structures bring intelligence into being when the evidence suggests intelligence comes first. I — EnPassant

"Evidence" such as –?

I think the same objection could be raised against materialists; they argue that biological structures bring intelligence into being when the evidence suggests intelligence comes first. — EnPassant

@180 Proof

I'm signing up for more information.

What if EnPassant is correct and we have it backwards?

One piece of evidence is the mathematical nature of the universe. Math is an abstraction, something only a mind (intelligence) is capable of. If there's math in nature and there is, the universe, from the smallest to the largest, itself must be/could be the handiwork of a mind (intelligence).

What sayest thou?

"Evidence" such as –? — 180 Proof

Evidence is everything; everything from a dust mote to a galaxy. Russell argued that there is not enough evidence for God's existence but there is a whole universe of evidence. The real question is how do we interpret the evidence?. Some people interpret the evidence in a way that supports the existence of intelligence in the universe at large and does not limit intelligence to biological entities.

Intelligence, or goal-directed agency, neither follows from nor is presupposed by the mere mathematicity of nature. E.g. a vacuum (void), insofar as it is completely symmetrical (i.e. without any orientation whatsoever), implies mathematical structures (re: Noether's theorem) but does not entail (or presuppose) a mathematician. In other words, 'the mappability of the territory' constitutes (the structure, or logical form, of) the territory; nothing else is (onto)logically required for the territory to be.

So explain where my thinking goes wrong.

Nonsense. If everything counts as evidence, then nothing counts as evidence.

Intelligence, or goal-directed agency, neither follows from nor is presupposed by the mere mathematicity of nature. E.g. a vaccuum (void), insofar as it is completely symmetrical (i.e. without any orientation whatsoever), implies mathematical structures (re: Noether's theorem) but does not entail (or presuppose) a mathematician. In other words, 'the mappability of the territority' constitutes (the structure, or logical form, of) the terroritory; nothing else is (onto)logically required for the territory to be.

So explain where my thinking goes wrong. — 180 Proof

I was wondering about the existence of abstraction in our universe in the form of math. Abstraction, last I checked, is a distinctly mind attribute. I simply followed that lead to where it took me - a mind/an intelligence behind it all.

And that "mind/intelligence behind it all" – in turn, what mind ... did its "distinctly mind attributes" come from?

Faith is independent of facts and of reason, and therefore no amount of facts or reason will shake anyone's faith (unless they give in to reason). — god must be atheist

This is the "realist" lie about faith. Not that I think there is a need for "intelligent design" for life to begin and proliferate. This is probably off subject, so I won't take this any further here.

And that "mind/intelligence behind it all" – in turn, what mind ... did its "distinctly mind attributes" come from? — 180 Proof

Well, just as some are happy to say the universe is just one giant accident, this mind too could've been one.

The real question is how do we interpret the evidence? — EnPassant

This is a good point. Do you know your god's attributes because of the evidence? No, you don't. The evidence does not let you trace back to the creator. There is nothing linking to the fact that the creator is good, bad, green, red, tall, short, omnipotent or partially potent, is everywhere or just in one place.

There is nothing in creation that points at any one quality of god. Maybe intelligence; maybe the ability to create. But there are alternative explanations about the universe that are supported by evidence and do not need the god image.

What I am driving at is that if you take the universe or parts of it as evidence that there is a creator, you still don't know anything about the creator OTHER THAN WHAT YOU FANTASIZE ABOUT HIM. You say it is necessary that he be the ultimate smart and intelligent person. But that is not NECESSARILY true. It could be true, or not, and looking at the universe you don't know, you can NOT know if your fantasy is true or not.

There is a thought that comes out of this: if you don't know ANY attributes of your god, then you don't know there is a god; you can have a faith. And since you don't know any of his attributes, you can't have faith on knowledge.

Hence, you can't have faith on facts. Or on theories.

Therefore faith does not depend on facts or on evidence, or on reason; it is completely removed from all that.

Therefore my initial opionion stands.

This is the "realist" lie about faith. Not that I think there is a need for "intelligent design" for life to begin and proliferate. This is probably off subject, so I won't take this any further here. — T Clark

You're right. There is no counter argument, so you elegantly avoid the discussion of it.

One piece of evidence is the mathematical nature of the universe. — TheMadFool

Who told you this bobimeiser? The universe has no mathematical nature. Man's interpretation and description of the universe uses mathematics. The universe only uses mathematics (as far as we know) in the minds of humans. The universe, and nature, IS. It is not calculating itself via math formulas.

You're right. There is no counter argument, so you elegantly avoid the discussion of it. — god must be atheist

Of course there's a counter argument. I'm not a theist and I can see it. The fact that you are so smug in dismissing the possibility just shows you are captive to the Dawkinsist ideology. I decided not to go further with the discussion because it is not consistent with the original post.

Who told you this bobimeiser? The universe has no mathematical nature. Man's interpretation and description of the universe uses mathematics. The universe only uses mathematics (as far as we know) in the minds of humans. The universe, and nature, IS. It is not calculating itself via math formulas. — god must be atheist

The description that's a good match for reality is mathematical. Put differently, natural phenomena follow mathematical laws.

What I am driving at is that if you take the universe or parts of it as evidence that there is a creator, you still don't know anything about the creator OTHER THAN WHAT YOU FANTASIZE ABOUT HIM. — god must be atheist

If the universe contains beauty we can say that God knows and values beauty. You could counter this by saying the universe also contains ugliness. But ugliness/evil is a corruption of good. Evil is not some alien entity utterly other than God. It is a corruption of goodness/life. Evil cannot exist without good as a parasite cannot exist without its host. It is the positive that matters and it is the positive that God created.

The description that's a good match for reality is mathematical. Put differently, natural phenomena follow mathematical laws. — TheMadFool

It seems to me that mathematics are the foundation and physical reality is mathematics made visible. Hawking asked 'What breathes fire into the equations?' If mind is the fundamental reality and if matter is contingent/created then it would seem that matter is a physical illustration or image of mind/mathematics. The material universe is thought made visible.

Well, then it's "the accident" in either case that gives rise to everything as it is.

If the universe contains beauty we can say that God knows and values beauty. — EnPassant

Sorry, EP, but we can't say that. Instead, we can say this:
If the universe contains beauty we can say that a God as we imagine him, knows and values beauty. But some of us deny that God is a real thing, so beauty may be a thing that human beings know and value, without any intervention of a supernatural bully.

Of course there's a counter argument. I'm not a theist and I can see it. The fact that you are so smug in dismissing the possibility just shows you are captive to the Dawkinsist ideology. I decided not to go further with the discussion because it is not consistent with the original post. — T Clark

You are your own lord, you do what you wish.

If you are not a theist then I'm a discarded cigarette still burning.

Faith is independent of facts and of reason, and therefore no amount of facts or reason will shake anyone's faith (unless they give in to reason).
— god must be atheist

This is the "realist" lie about faith. Not that I think there is a need for "intelligent design" for life to begin and proliferate. This is probably off subject, so I won't take this any further here. — T Clark

There is no reason to go off topic. You said the realists' position on faith is a lie. I wish you would either retract it, or else support it with some reasonable explanation.

You are absolutely right in not going off in a tangent that has nothing to do with your claim. Stay with the topic, if I may ask you, and explain why you think the realists' position is a lie. The tangent you were going to go off on is the need or lack of need for intelligent design for life to start and propagate. Fine, don't go off on that tangent. Stay with the topic, and explain why you think the realists' position is a lie.

Since you used a false reason to retreat (to stay on topic, while introducing a topic nobody was touching, yet you made it as if that was the topic someone discussed, and was off-topic from the original post), you are no doubt in my mind are avoiding the topic because there is no legitimate argument you have against it.

But you don't have to stay just because I asked you. Go. Just go. If that's what you want. Except if you stay, then stay with the actual topic, and explain why you said the realists lie about faith.

Put differently, natural phenomena follow mathematical laws. — TheMadFool

No, sir, the natural phenomena and their laws are described by humans using mathematics. The natural phenomena do NOT follow mathematical laws.

Mathematics does not even have laws. It has some basic rules of computation and relationships, and everything else in mathematics is a corollary to that. Laws don't exist in math. The basic rules of math are called axioms. They can't be proven, they must be accepted as they are stated, and then a system of more complicated relationships is built on that as a superstructure. Nature has nothing to do with that.

The material universe is thought made visible. — EnPassant

You and TheMadFool have everything backwards. And you believe that that is how it is. That's how strong your faith is.

Well, then it's "the accident" in either case that gives rise to everything as it is. — 180 Proof

That sounds about right. No contest!

No, sir, the natural phenomena and their laws are described by humans using mathematics. The natural phenomena do NOT follow mathematical laws. — god must be atheist

Are you kidding me? The whole of western civilization chronicles the discovery of the mathematical laws of nature and their practical application..

Mathematics does not even have laws. It has some basic rules of computation and relationships, and everything else in mathematics is a corollary to that. Laws don't exist in math. The basic rules of math are called axioms. They can't be proven, they must be accepted as they are stated, and then a system of more complicated relationships is built on that as a superstructure. Nature has nothing to do with that. — god must be atheist

Rules = Laws

It seems to me that mathematics are the foundation and physical reality is mathematics made visible. Hawking asked 'What breathes fire into the equations?' If mind is the fundamental reality and if matter is contingent/created then it would seem that matter is a physical illustration or image of mind/mathematics. The material universe is thought made visible. — EnPassant

The material universe = the "physicalization" of mathematics, as Marcus du Sautoy puts it in his book, What we cannot know.

I guess I hurt your feelings with my last post.

The universe has no mathematical nature. — god must be atheist

Can you describe any aspect of reality which is demonstrably non mathematical or goes against mathematical reason?