This is going way off-topic, but why would something create something else to praise, revere and serve it?

Well, I can see the "serve" part if we're talking about something like machines or robots and a creator who could use/would like some help getting things done, but that's the only angle from which I'd say that doesn't sound wonky. — Terrapin Station

not evangelizing - just showing another philosophy on desire and suffering - just a cut an paste of the whole thing - as above telling all to feel free to take the God part out and sub in your own world view.

A very Jesuit way of looking at this is not that desire causes suffering, but disordered desires do. Ordered desires - taking the God part out, are those desires that stated simply increase love, desiring things that increase love in yourself and in others will not cause suffering. Quite the contrary.

This is the what Jesuits call the First Principle and Foundation - feel free to take out the God part - but adapted to ones own world view I always found some wisdom in this:

God created human beings to praise, reverence, and serve God, and by
doing this, to save their souls.

God created all other things on the face of the earth to help fulfill this
purpose.

From this it follows that we are to use the things of this world only to
the extent that they help us to this end, and we ought to rid ourselves
of the things of this world to the extent that they get in the way of this
end.

For this it is necessary to make ourselves indifferent to all created
things as much as we are able, so that we do not necessarily want
health rather than sickness, riches rather than poverty, honor rather
than dishonor, a long rather than a short life, and so in all the rest, so
that we ultimately desire and choose only what is most conducive for
us to the end for which God created us.

ok sure.

I wasn't being nasty, I was pointing out circles exist in nature, and the ratio of the circumstances to the diameters of these circles exist in nature.

go throw a rock in a pond

it is

sorry before I could possibly address your point you will need to define potato, because there are many things that one can call potato and some may or may not be mashable, and what really is mashed? If I use a ricer is that a mashing? And if there is pulp in the juice does that help or hurt its orangeness? Is a tangarine an orange or not?

The inability on here, for no particular good reason, to not readily accept simple understandings of language, simply as tactic often drives me nuts. It is not philosophy it is debate. If such clarification is important to the concept being discussed, fine. Buy at least to my very untrained eye, that is the exception.

The modern view is the big bang was the birth of space-time. Is the concept of before valid in an era when time itself did not exist? — Bill Hobba

Pre anything is a valid concept, as long as the "anything " exists, and that anything can certainly be space time.

My belief about Pi is its defined as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. A — Bill Hobba

The ratio of a circle to its diameter existed before it was observed, named and quantified. The ratio was not invented it was observed.

absolutely. There is near complete scientific consensus that man's burning fossil fuels are impacting the climate. However, it is also important to acknowledge that at this moment of time there is no scientific consensus on the timing or extent or effects of climate change.

A side story to make the point. A very very long time ago I worked on a project to improve propeller efficiency in large ships to save fuel. One easy idea was to encase the propeller in a cowl, the physics was easy and predicted a 2 or 3 percent fuel saving. The test tank confirmed the physics. So we installed a few on ships, and did some prolonged sea trials. We could not find any statistical significant fuel savings. There are just too many other variables with a much higher significance in the real world for the minor predicted fuel savings to be measured.

That didn't stop us, we sold them anyway because the engineering was good, and accurate, and buyers would believe, that even though they couldn't measure it, they were still saving 2 or 3 percent of their fuel costs. It was engineered snake oil. And there are thousands of them on ships today.

There is always a gap between real life, and scientifically modeled life. And it rare that we can accurately account for all the consequences of the actions we take in complicated systems. All that said the science of climate change is good, and we should do what we can reasonably do to mitigate and move away from fossil fuels, whether we can or can not accurately measure the impacts, or know all the consequences.

And one aside.

In almost all climate change discussions, an important part is often missing. The availability of cheap energy over the last give or take 100 years may well be most significant thing that has improved the human quality of life planet wide to level unimaginable less than 3 generations ago. Seems there is no free lunch.

Most gods are created in the image of man, and then retroactively reversed. They say more about human desires than anything else- projected onto an entity. Thus, Yahweh reflected the ancient Hebrew need for community and ethical cohesion. Krishna reflected the human need for following caste and duty in order to sustain ancient laws. The Hindu Atman/Brahaman reflects our need to escape the noise of life into the quietude of a peaceful state. — schopenhauer1

This is all we can do. We have to anthromorphise such a concept as God in order to say anything at all about it. The problem is we have no rational basis at all to support anything at all we say about the nature of such a thing as God. For all we know, we could be like 2 ants arguing about quantum mechanics. We are all free to believe as we wish, both theist or atheist, about our view of such a thing as God, however it is important to note all such beliefs are outside reason and are based on faith.

and by the way - you are taking the explanation literally - it was an analogy

Mathematics is a theoretical science. It's logic doesn't follow the limitations of making physical measurements. — ssu

again, i disagree, at its base all math is, is a numerical model of reality. And it has inherent limits in its ability to do so. In many, maybe even most situations it is just a really good approximation of the reality it is trying to model. The area under the curve, is not the actual area under the curve, it is just a really really good approximation of that area and as a tool it works just fine for what we need it to do.

believe I am correct. And you are not understanding my point. But it is a minor point, in the context of the discussion. so will leave it as this.


I give you a board of some length. In reality that board exists, and it is an absolutely specific length.

I hand you a tape measure with 1 inch increments and ask you to measure the board. You tell me it is a little over 6 ft 1 inch long. I give you a different tape, with 1/16 inch increments. You tell me the board is 6 ft, 1 2/8 inches long, I hand you a laser tape - you tell me the board is 6ft 1.15625 inches long. Each measurement was an approximation of the the length of the board, limited by the accuracy of the tool.

Pi is a tool math uses to describe the relationship that exists in reality between the circumference and the diameter of a circle. What Pi is not is 22/7 that is an approximation, what it is not is 3.14 - what it is not is 3.141 and so on and so on. each decimal i add gets closer and makes the tool better but even if i add 1 million decimal points, we are not there, it is not as good as 1 million and one.

Pi is a good tool, a really good tool. But its use is an approximation of the reality it is trying to express.

because it is not an exact numerical relationship of the physical relationship that is why it is called Pi and not just a number - by definition, an infinite,non-repeating decimal is an irrational number. An irrational number is not an exact anything.

While we have no real alternative that to try to understand something like God by applying some anthropomorphic concept. It is important to understand we have no reasonable basis to say anything at all about the nature of such a thing as God, if there is one. The cognitive distance between human beings and such a thing that could cause the universe as we perceive it to exist is immense. It could be like an ant trying to explain how a plane flies.

While a desire to understand such a being seems innate, we do not posses the tools of reason that would allow such an understanding. And all attempts at reason, in understanding such a concept as the nature of God, fail before they start, because we have no reasonable basis to believe we can say anything at all about what God is, is not, can or can't do.

Pi is a mathematical approximation ( a very very very good one) of the physical relationship between the circumference and the diameter of a circle. Like all math, it is a model, it is a physical reality modeled in numbers. The physical is the reality, the math is just an approximation of the reality in numbers.

Just for the sake of friendly debate, I would ask, what price are Catholics willing to pay for sticking with the failing status quo? The credibility and influence of the Church is collapsing, which from the Catholic perspective will result in lost souls. Is losing these souls worth it, just so the clergy can do one particular job instead of another equally important job, the work of nuns? — Jake

Not arguing, explaining. For Catholics, the authority of the church is a direct and unbroken line from Christ to Peter, to every pope since. And even with some incredibly bad popes, and all the awful things some of them have done, none of them have ever acted authoritatively on matters of faith and morals, or as we would say infallibly, that had ever been shown to be in detriment to the church or in any moral way wrong. The reason we believe this, is when acting so, it is not the man acting, it is God acting through him. So, when John Paul spoke infallibly that the priesthood will only be men, that means to us God said so. One cannot actually be a well formed Catholic and not believe in the infallibility of the pope when acting authoritatively on matters of faith and morals. It is the very authority of the Church. Right or wrong, good or bad, there will not be women priests in the church. Or at least not without causing another great schism.

Wax I think there is certainly evidence of a black hole in the center of the milky way - if memory serves the speed of the gasses circulating the "hole" have been used to estimate the gravitation force needed to produce that movement. It would require something the mass of a few billion "suns" occupying the space of something like our solar system.

:ok:

The problem is that we can never truly be objective, — S

sure, and we can never be absolutely, truly a bunch of things. Does the inability of purity make the quest less important?

And that it could still be unwise, or so it seems to me, to go out searching for what we perceive truth to be, and acting in accordance with this perceived truth, which might not be true at all. — S

except there is no "truth" or "wisdom" judge to give you the absolute and un-biased truth that you really are a fool. Although - there will be no shortage of impostures that tell you they are - and that you are

Anyway, here's what I really think about wisdom. — S

You too ??

how about something like an objective search for truth as you perceive truth to be, and acting in accordance with your truth.

Does making wisdom an individual concept lessen it?

Yes, and it seems the serious question is the practical one, how to best train oneself. Regrettably, there is no one perfect answer to this. For me, it's spending lots of time in nature, for somebody else it might be attending Mass, or doing scientific research, or driving a bus. We spend a lot of time arguing over which is the "one true way" when we probably should instead be focused on the question of "what is the right way for me?" — Jake

Agree - and no issue with me - I may be an apologist, but I am not an evangelist

Words can easily get in the way. As example, if we ask "what is the right way for me to see God" the word God immediately brings to mind a collection of images in Western culture that may be helpful, or may be a fatal distraction. — Jake

There are all kinds of loaded words, and God is sure one of them. They are difficult to overcome in any discussion, not because of lack of meaning - but in having too many meanings, too many individual meanings, and too many different meanings. But for me it is a label, we have to call this entity something so we can somewhat discuss the concept. But agree can spend a bunch of unproductive time fighting through lots of walls and emotion when such words get used.

I'm not sure what part of Catholic teaching might address any of this, perhaps you point to something? — Jake

have to give me a few on this - nothing jumping to mind

As far as Catholicism goes the solution I see is simple and straightforward, have the clergy and nuns swap roles. Still an entirely Catholic operation, but all the branding damage is removed as an obstacle. One decisive act and Catholic credibility is back on track in the public realm, but regrettably in it's current form Catholicism appears to be incapable of such clarity. But then, I haven't been Catholic in a long time, so what do I really know about it? — Jake

Think we had this chat before. There is an immovable obstacle in the way of this idea. One that is complete catholic dogma so don't have a reasoned argument against. But the catch is, it has been addressed authoritatively, which means infallibly. It will take some pretty creative canon lawyers to find a way to get around this and maintain the concept of Papal infallibility - and without that, the Church just collapses into just one more protestant sect. Not going to happen.



for the rest -

There is no way around the abuse scandal - none. There is no excuse or explanation. The only thing the church can do, and what it should have done all along, is shine as bright a light on it as they can, ask for forgiveness, make amends to the injured and have faith that if what you believe to be true, is true, this is the one true church - it will survive. That to me is the one very big sin of the cover up, it is a lack of faith in The Church and therefor in Christ.

Sermon over -

understand. Then I am back to my point that nothing has an ontological meaning, existence is harder. Guess the question would be does the space between objects exist.

again not sure, if a mouse does or does not occupy some specific space at a specific time may have great meaning to a hawk. Maybe I am looking at this incorrectly, if you point is “nothing” has no physical presence, I agree- but I don’t think that is any kind of important concept

again not sure "nothing" is pure abstraction. There are such things as time and space. In a specific space at a specific time there exist either something or nothing. Either option has meaning.

or they don't - both options exist and have meaning.

not sure the concept of an absence of something occupying some specific space, in some specific time is any less meaningful than the concept of something occupying some specific space at some specific time.

First, assigning the noun "God" to the single unified reality has the effect of creating more division, because creating conceptual division is after all the purpose of nouns. And so for example the statement "I love God" presumes that "I" is one thing and "God" is another thing, and loving God is suggested as a method of bridging a a gap which doesn't actually exist anywhere but in our thought drenched imaginations. But what does exist is the illusion of division, and love is useful in the attempt to heal that illusion — Jake

agree - was struggling with a way to secularize the concept - but gave up on it. Understanding the obvious leap into a faith based belief would be off setting.

Catholic teaching does seem to address this in the doctrine that God is ever present everywhere in all times and places. If one takes that literally what it would seem to mean is that there is actually no division between God and everything else, or in new age talk, "all is one". However, in my experience Catholics usually reject the notion of this unity of all things and instead cling pretty stubbornly to the idea that God is something separate from us and everything else. I don't share that view, but then like I said, I'm no longer Catholic and haven't been for 50 years. — Jake

The core concept in Ignatian Spirituality is " Seeing God in all things" - for some stuff this is real easy, for some stuff this is near impossible for those of weaker faith like me. But the concept is very much as you describe above. That God is active and present in everything, and if you train yourself to look you will see it.

As for the second half, it is just human to try and frame such a concept as God in some type of unique anthropomorphic form. It is the only way most can get their hands around such a concept. My personal take is that we as humans have no reasonable basis at all to say anything at all about the nature of such a thing as God. My faith tells me God is, as some type of entity, and with some qualities of absolute goodness, absolute love, etc, but i don't have any view on form or substance ( except of course a few very Catholic beliefs , such as Christ and The Eucharist)

And then of course there is the issue of clerical structure, which preserves itself by reinforcing a division between "Catholics" and "everybody else". There is some hope here though, as in our time the Catholic clerical structure appears to be determined to destroy itself by any and all means available. — Jake

This is a little trickier - in Catholicism the role of the clergy is different than the laity - not separate and not superior. Here is the teaching for better or worse - We are all "The Body of The Church" and we all have a calling. Some are called to family life, some to serve as clergy. The clergy are sacramentally bestowed an ability to act in some circumstances " In persona Christi" - This is an important concept in Catholicism - it is not the priest that can absolve sins, or perform the transfiguration - it is God - acting through the priest. Now in practice, by human beings, with all the frailties they inherently have - some turn this to their own power, and some allow them to. But the teaching is the clergy is just another calling.

In my view, it's a mistake to get sucked in to debating what approach to fundamental human problems is the best. Instead we might focus on trying to understand what the fundamental human situation actually is, and then each of us can try to address that by whatever methodology works best for us personally.

As example, in the East they often approach this very same issue of fantasy division in a different manner by attempting to learn how to better manage that which is generating the illusion of division, thought. Same exact problem, but a different way of approaching it.

Which method is better? Whatever works best for you. And of course we don't really have to chose. One can love one's neighbor and meditate too. — Jake

no issue with any of this

In Ignatian Spirituality this would be called discernment of spirits. Basically it is an understanding of our decision making. We all make hundreds of decisions each day, some big, some very small. We make those decisions based on desires. What Jesuit discernment is, is trying to identify the source of these desires, and see if they are ordered or not. Ordered being for the greater love of God and each other. In simple terms like your eastern beliefs of “ right action” it is "do the right thing", or more correctly learn, or train yourself how to desire the right thing, and internal source of these right desires. It is becoming aware of your feelings, and evaluating the source of those feelings, and if the source and the desires are ordered or not. Hard to explain in this small box, maybe think of it as a very well exercised conscience. What it is not, is some set of rules, the "thou shall not's" that is not it at all - it is just becoming aware of the sources of our desires, and do these desires increase good, increase love, or not.

I think this quote fits here

Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism - it's turning God into a nature god. And science needs religion in order to have a conscience, to know that, just because something is possible, it may not be a good thing to do.

Guy Consolmagno

Do you think that if the premise is changed to: "Holding on to unsupported belief always leads to uninformed acts" is more clear then? — Christoffer

better, but just extending the time doesn't help much. holding on - after proved false or unreasonable is still better. The point being that unsupported does not mean true or not true, fact or not fact, reasonable or unreasonable - it just means unsupported. And some unsupported ideas will lead to good things an some to bad and some to neutral.

I don't see the link you are trying to make - sorry.

before attacking the whole - there is a huge logic breakdown in your argument

You agree that " supported" beliefs start as unsupported beliefs. This simple acknowledgement of fact is by definition in conflict with your premise

An unsupported belief always leads to uninformed acts.

No they often lead to "supported beliefs" after proper evaluation - you can not have one without the other.

and so on and so on.

I am not sure you can bridge this logic flaw in the argument. No idea starts as a supported idea, the support follows. My suggestion is you would need to eliminate the idea of "unsupported" and insert , false or disproved. Which is where I think you are intellectually, IMO you equate "unproven" with false, which they are not.

you have done a lot of work here, and you deserve a proper, reasonable response, so here goes:



p1 An unsupported belief leads to uninformed acts.
p2 A supported belief leads to informed acts.
p3 An unsupported belief has a high risk of distorting knowledge
p4 A supported belief has a low risk of distorting knowledge

In all of the above, you need to define all the terms, they are not standard and are
subject to lots of interpretation. So please define:

Unsupported and supported belief
Informed and uniformed acts
And distorted knowledge.

Secondly, independent of your definitions, there is no causality in your premises.
You would have to add, something like :

An unsupported belief, always or usually, etc leads to uninformed acts.

Without such a link, there is no direct cause one to the other. All your premises turn into - people who like vanilla ice cream leads to uniformed acts.

Lastly, what are the origins of “ supported beliefs” do such beliefs spring into our collective consciences fully supported?? I would opine, most if not all “supported beliefs” begin their existence as a thought, and idea, an “unsupported belief” that someone works on to validate and if successful turns into a “supported belief”


Therefore, unsupported belief is less reasonable than supported belief.

Pending you definitions of the above, I have no real issue at all with this statement
And no clue why you need the premises above to arrive at this.

Then

p1 High reasonable belief leads to reasonable acts
p2 Low reasonable belief leads to unreasonable acts
p3 High reasonable acts are considered ethical
p4 Low reasonable acts are considered unethical

Therefore, a low reasonable belief is unethical.
On to these:

As above you need to define

Reasonable and unreasonable acts
And your definition of
Ethical/unethical

Also as above, there is no causality in the premises . A does not directly cause B

Cant address any more of this until it is defined and causality is established

p1 Unsupported belief is unethical
p2 Supported belief is ethical
p3 Theism relies on an unsupported belief

Therefore, theism is unethical.

And finally

Define – theism
And as above
You need to establish casualty

When you do all this - I am happy to continue

all due respect, I am not going to spend any more time arguing the reasonability of an argument that has lasted over 700 years. Again, I am not saying it proves God is, I am saying it shows such a thing as God, is a resonable possibility. And for your argument to stand you need to show the CA is outside reason. You have not done so, and your counter arguments are not making any headway in doing this.

How can it prove something outside known physics without assuming the properties of what is outside known physics? That is assuming a lot that hasn't even been proven through theoretical physics and drawing a conclusion on that, is false. — Christoffer

proving what happened before the Big Bang is outside physics is the entire darn point of the argument. You are making no sense at all with this line of logic

p3 Cosmological and design arguments require known laws of physics to exist before Big Bang.
p4 There is no data to support known laws of physics to exist before Big Bang. — Christoffer

P3 is patently false, the entire point of the CA is the creation of the universe is outside physics, that it is supernatural. so then p4 is redundantly false

This is why the cosmological and design argument is failing since it needs to have in their premises exactly what was before Big Bang and that everything there followed the known laws of physics. This is not known yet and scientists don't know what happened before Big Bang, so how can those with the cosmological and design arguments make claims that need truths about pre-Big Bang but still have a valid argument? — Christoffer

Wow, so the argument that concludes the beginning was supernatural needs a scientific explanation of what it is trying to argue. You realize absolutely none of that paragraph makes any sense at all.

And hate to do this, but the rest of the post is worse. That well could be the single worst argument against the CA I have ever seen.

p3 Theism relies on an unsupported belief — Christoffer

i would counter P3 is false, both the cosmological argument, and some design arguments are valid. Valid meaning the premises are true, and the conclusions follow. That does not mean, there are not counter arguments against, but none of them overwhelm the arguments.

doesn't really address

Can you actually make a formal argument that ends in a conclusion that states " therefor theism is unreasonable " - i am unaware of such an argument actually existing. Would be interested to see it. — Rank Amateur

as I think you know -

your argument does not work unless theism is shown unsupported /unreasonable - becomes circular.

Can you actually make a formal argument that ends in a conclusion that states " therefor theism is unreasonable " - i am unaware of such an argument actually existing. Would be interested to see it.

OK - cool - now on to Russel

I agree with Russel, that the person making the claim has the burden of proof. With a few caveats. The first is the intent of the claim has to be evangelical - you are trying to change the mind of the person you are arguing with to your position. The second one is, who holds the definition of what "proof" is.

So if I make a claim that such a thing as love exists, and i want you to believe as I do that love exists, it is my burden to make an argument that convinces you. If however, you establish a burden of proof that is, by definition, outside any possibility, do to the nature of the claim. Than that person has established an impossible burden. If in the case above, you tell me you will believe in love, it I can bring you a box with a pound of love in it. Without that proof - you tell me i have not made my argument, and you have no reason to believe such a thing as love exists. All your position turns into is I don't believe you, because I don't believe you.

Now on to point one, Russel was aware, that the teapot can orbit in both directions. If one wants to make a claim that God does not exist, and wants to change the theist mind to agree with that, than he is holding the teapot, and has the burden of proof. Russel was very aware of this, and if he did have a definitive argument that God does not exist, he would have been happy to make it. He did not however, so he needed a method to deny God is, yet not hold the teapot. And being a very very smart man came up with the "You have not convinced me, i have no reason to believe" argument. With this tactic he feels he is free to be completely atheistic - and free of defending the non belief.

And I am fine with all of that, except that the atheist does not want it to end there. As on this board and almost everywhere else the atheist wants to challenge the belief that God is, with the implicit claim God is not, with a semantic excuse they don't have to prove it. I find this disingenuous, and pure tactic.

Finally all of this is dependent on one party trying to change the mind of the other - the argument has to be evangelical. Personally i find such arguments useless. I have no interest in changing anyone's mind from atheism to theism. My only objective in all or these arguments is to claim theism is reasonable. And if I make such a claim as reasonableness, it is outside Mr. Russel's argument.