I generally agree, but there are things that we've found that defy this, and yet we know they've been intelligently designed — Sam26

I'd be interested to here more what are a couple of examples?

I'll ask you the same question I asked ↪180 Proof, what would count as evidence of intelligent design in the universe? What things are lacking? — Sam26

I'm not the one making the claim, so I can't provide an answer. Usually the reason we know something is designed in life is because we already know it is designed - it's manufactured and distributed by channels and makers we can go to and meet and we can understand (almost fully) how and why it was made.

But anything can appear to be designed if we cast a wide enough net. I think the quest to identify this is pretty fraught, if not pointless when it comes to the natural world.

I'm really only interested in Muslims and evangelical Christians who make this argument and nail it down with some specificity.

That is what I call ‘hotel manager theodicy’. ‘Hey, who’s in charge here! Can’t you see people are SUFFERING! There are earthquakes, and nasty diseases. I could do a lot better, myself.’ — Wayfarer

I think that should be Yahweh, the Hotel Manager theodicy.

Maybe the designer/s wanted these things as part of the design, i.e., to create a challenging place to experience. — Sam26

If you are desperate to make intelligent design fit, then sure - chaos and misery might be part of the plan. But in debates with intelligent design proponents it is generally order and beauty they elevate, not the predation and disease component, which are usually glossed over. But the argument that if there is a god he is a cunt is workable, based on how the world seems.

The 'appearance of there being a design' is an argument that Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett make - that living things appear to be designed, but that each of the components of the overall organism arises without a designer, purely as a result of chance and necessity - that some things just happen on the molecular level that then give rise to necessary outcomes due to physical laws. — Wayfarer

Nicely summarized. I'd probably remove the 'just' from before 'happen.' An issue for me is it is humans deciding upon what is order and what is chaos. How do we know? It's not like we are not coming to this judgment from some Archimedean point.

It looks to me as if the universe is more about chaos and entropy than order - black holes being so bountiful and an entire creation on earth predicated on needless suffering in the wilderness, not to mention the cruelties of almost universal predation and the bountiful range of poorly designed features of what we know as corporeal life - innumerable diseases, cancer, MS, Parkinson's, leprosy, etc...

Also, the question "Who designed the designer?" is invalid because it's like asking "Who taught Helio Gracie jiu-jitsu?" - — gevgala

Not a great analogy given that prior or jiu-jitsu there were other marital arts that Helio knew of and unarmed combat had had a long, long tradition which had evolved over time. It's not like Helio created something from nothing, the way gods are supposed to. If there were no physical combat or fighting ever in the history of human beings then maybe this would be a better analogy.

Taking your analogy then we might say that the god or gods who made this world might have been influence by gods which made other worlds they had encountered. Just as Helio was influenced by other fighting techniques.

Maybe you believe that there are many gods who specialize in designing different parts of 'creation'? Some gods excel at skys perhaps? Some are brilliant at apes and other gods are good at landscape?

Well, in any case, if a designer doesn't need a cause, then we have established that some things do not require a cause. These things are often called brute facts. Could it be a paucity of human imagination to suggest that what we call the universe must have a cause? It might just be a brute fact.

How could we possibly know that everything must have a cause, based on the small amount humans know of the entire universe? From a philosophical position, we are not sure what causation even is. Personally I don't think we can build a robust view of the supposed 'ultimate nature of reality' based on how human perceptions and value judgements work.

The problem is that they're all strawmen. — praxis

Then Aquinas and Christopher Hitchens are not so different. :joke:

They don't question what is beyond the boxes when questioning theistic claims. — praxis

Beyond the boxes? Sounds like an old movie of the week title. If you are referring to god as 'god is in itself' then I would suggest most atheists do question this too. Perhaps you mean something else?

Basically that God is ineffable so any dumb atheist that comes along with their boxy reason will be invariably off the mark — praxis

Indeed. I include that in what I said earlier. Perhaps an unintentional straw man argument.

Incidentally, does any version of the Christian god stack neatly? — Vera Mont

Depends who you talk to. I'm not in the worship business so I can't help with that.

I am ruling that out. A corporeal god creates all sorts of theological problems. I think when we start getting into literal interpretations of scripture and anthropomorphic descriptions of God, the atheist ridicule properly applies. — Hanover

I find this very interesting. Do you think this comes from a Jewish perspective?

A theist who can't recognize that his beliefs are likely as they are due to his parent's beliefs is hard to take seriously. — Hanover

Fair.

I was being less generous in that regard and I would insist, for example, that if someone's account violates physical laws, then I would discount their account as unreliable. — Hanover

Also interesting. I know Christians who hold this and think all the miracle stories in the Bible are nonsense.

If God is somewhere specific, I have the right to ask for his address, put him on a scale and weigh him, take a biopsy, and kick him in the shins. That's what physical means. — Hanover

I would have though that if god wants to be encountered in a physical realm then god can do this. But perhaps not for a biopsy or a stool sample.

Non-dualism - not two or non-divided - is not necessarily monistic in outlook. — Wayfarer

That's an important point I wasn't aware of.

What did you by atheist-made boxes? — Vera Mont

Atheism forces God into little boxes and then complains when the boxes don't stack neatly. — T Clark

I think this works - TC seems to be saying that atheists twist ideas of god into distortions and then use those distortions as evidence that God is a problematic idea. In other words, it's a variation on a straw man argument.

I'm suggesting that the way you're going about it is in terms of trying to assume a perspective or point of view outside both perceiver and perceived. You're trying to imagine the issue in objective terms. — Wayfarer

Given how often we come back to this key conceptual frame there really ought to be a simple 'sticky' on it here. Many people find it hard to conceptualize. I got there through French thinker Michel Bitbol. It takes repetition and a speculative imagination.

The way I'm approaching it is through nondualism. — Wayfarer

Which is a non-physicalist monism. Do you have a useful definition of reality that comes out of this model or do you think 'reality' is a vexed term?

I've seen it. Not sure how sound he is on philosophy but I know he draws from Susan Haack and David Hume. But as an autodidact, he can be a bit cocksure.

I agree with that. But then, an answer that is correct, job done, doesn't generate new questions. — Ludwig V

Does this mean that you think answers are unhelpful? I guess one might ask, about what matter?

I agree that questions are important but do we need to take from this that answers are always anathema?

What exactly is an answer to a philosophical question - is it a solution or dissolution? Or the best available, but tentative hypothesis?

I'm not a philosopher, I'm wondering is there a single philosophical question that has been 'answered' definitively for eternity?

Makes sense. Cheers.

— Robert Frost - The Black Cottage — T Clark

That's good! Thanks.

Just interested on your attraction to the labels agnostic atheist, as an accurate combination — universeness

I completely failed to answer this. Sorry.

This definition is important to me because of the endless confusion people have about agnosticism vis-à-vis atheism. I think if you can incorporate both and explain the context of knowledge versus belief, you have a better persuasive platform. In discussing atheism with theists, I try to avoid introducing new terms.

Such a model is predicated on there being actual external states, but not on them being of any fixed form. — Isaac

Really interesting. Do you believe that from this position there is a 'reality as it is in itself' or do you consider such a term incoherent - 'reality' being a constructivist process, dependent on a point of view for its meaning?

The more extreme indirect realist would want to say that the perceived object is entirely a dynamic and continually 'being formed' construct created as a collaboration between us and it (we interact with it, form ideas about it, impose those ideas on it etc).

In none of these cases (that I know of), is it claimed that the actual object about which the perception is the subject resides in the head. — Isaac

Interesting. The latter would be idealism, wouldn't it?

Whatever data is gathered from the external system is passed through several internal stages at each of which data other than from the (current) external state is allowed to modify the prediction of the external state used in, for example, speech about it, or interaction with it.

The process is not direct. — Isaac

It seems that the issue is where do we draw the line between indirect and the idea that 'materialism' is an illusion created by perception?

Perceptual psychologists tell us that most of what we see when we recognize objects is filled in from memory. What we actually take in though our sense receptors is very informationally impoverished. — Joshs

That seems to match my experience. How many times have I seen something and realized a second later that it was not the thing I thought I saw? Heaps. Anticipation and memory seemed to co-create what is in front of me.

Empirical evidence for the supernatural is a contradictory notion because that which is sensed must be by definition natural. — Hanover

My point isn't to identify what is supernatural or not (or even what counts as evidence) just that you can find seemingly reliable people who claim to have had all sorts of bizarre experiences, so there's not much the rest of us can take from a personal experience argument.

The only way I could see empirical evidence as being evidence of God's existence would be in the indirect sense, as is the fact that existence exists points to something creating that existence. — Hanover

Is this right? Surely you are not ruling out the possibility that god could appear empirically to all of us as they have done in stories/scripture?

Much time is spent psychoanalyzing the theist, perhaps because he seems so obviously wrong to the atheist that an explanation must be arrived at for why an otherwise intellgent person would take it seriously. But this is me psychoanalyzing the atheist. My guess is that we're both part right and part wrong here. — Hanover

I'm not psychoanalyzing anyone, I hope. Psychoanalysis is just another faith based belief system. :wink: I was simply making the common sense observation that most people believe in god because they are brought up that way - groomed by parents, family, culture. But as an atheist I don't hold to the view that belief in god is obviously wrong. My atheism is probably derived by aesthetic considerations and the simple lack of an ability to believe. Reasoning is post hoc.

What is interesting to me is how seriously the atheists take these conversations. You can't seem to have a thread about theism without the atheists being sure to enter the conversation and passionately objecting, some more respectfully than others — Hanover

It's a serious subject, right? Especially when you consider that for atheists, many of the world's key problems are either created by or intensified by a fiction people call God. (Let's not list all those countries with appalling expressions of religion again.) If theists did not want to influence abortion laws, women's rights, gay rights, access to contraception, environmental protections, what book we can read, etc, I don't think the matter would interest many atheists.

It's probably also worth mentioning that most atheists, myself included, rarely have reason to talk about theism/atheism. I know in America it isn't very safe to be openly atheist. Especially outside of urban cosmopolitanism. This is the only place where I have spoken of atheism in many years, so it's not really a part of my daily life (except as my implicit or enacted worldview). Much of my critique of religion actually comes from Christian religious writers like Bentley Hart and Shelby Spong.

Often the conversation turns toward a discussion of childhood trauma dealing with religion, prior episodes of social ostracism arising from religious institutions, and other bad acts of religion. — Hanover

Survivors of fundamentalist creeds tend to fall into this category. I consider myself fortunate to have been brought up within a liberal tradition of Christianity which saw the Bible as a series of myths designed to make a broader point.

In general I think what you have said about religion on this forum is reasonable and laudable.

Thanks, yes I did look it up and I have encountered it before but promptly forgotten it. Yes, I have often stated that the idea of god to me isn't coherent or clear enough to be engaged with in a meaningful way. God is like a Rorschach inkblot over which cultures and individuals seem to 'see' what they like. Now there are some theists (perhaps from apophatic traditions) who would not resent this description and be quite content with the notion that god is unknowable and incomprehensible to mortals.

Why are you not more attracted to Ignostic atheist? — universeness

Mainly because the term is new to me.

Meh, failure to commit. — Banno

But that's my entire philosophy, Banno.

We should consider the phrase: "To the best of my knowledge". — Fooloso4

Thanks. That's the one I use, partly to get out of the burden of certainty and absolute anything. :wink:

:up:

I frequently contemplate the gloomy possibility that at the point of death, you will realise that your life has been misdirected, at the precise moment when you know you have no more chances to do anything about it. — Wayfarer

What do you mean by misdirected? Missed opportunities to learn or missed opportunities to improve life for others? Or both?

As far as Pascal was concerned, no other gods but Jehovah would come under consideration; — Vera Mont

Indeed. But for anyone thinking of using the wager today this is a problem since it begs the question.

elevated to omni-mind-reader, so you couldn't fool him with insincere belief. — Vera Mont

Yep.

I was referring to something along the lines of Pascal's wager. — Agent Smith

I've never seen how this wager is meant to work. I personally do not believe that we can cynically choose our beliefs in this way. You are either convinced, or you are not convinced. How could anyone genuinely accept and integrate 'the truth' of a metaphysical presupposition like theism because of a potential consequence of a piss-poor bet?

An additional problem is which god do we undertake this wager on? The wager has no way of informing us what god to bet upon. What if the Muslim god is the true god? Or one of the gods of Protestant Christianity (surely Christianity amounts a series of different religions, with different gods vicious or accommodating, depending on the sect). Or Hinduism; Zoroastrianism...?

A final problem of course is how do we imagine a god would regard us for choosing to believe in it just for the sake of a wager? Fake it until you make it? Seems an approach completely lacking moral integrity or fidelity to an ideal, a contemptuous exercise in shallow self-interest.

I can't believe in something I don't know to be true, even if I don't know if it is not true. Are we having fun yet? :razz:

Some theists will point to personal experiences as evidence, — Thunder

Sure. Right now we can probably find many thousands of people who claim to have been abducted by aliens and taken away for a probing... They are often well adjusted people who hold down responsible jobs. I don't think we learn anything much from anecdotes or tales of personal experience. What exactly is a personal experience?

Ah, the all-famous lack of belief. In me humble opinion, atheists shouldn't co-opt lack of belief - that position is distinct enough to deserve a separate category (would save us a lot of trouble). — Agent Smith

I can't know there is no god. I can only decide there are no reasons good enough to believe in one. I am, like many contemporary freethinkers, an agnostic atheist. Agnostic in relation to knowledge of god; atheist in terms of belief in god.

If beliefs are not based on faith or empirical evidence, what is the main root? — javi2541997

I think most people believe in god because they are brought up with the idea - evidence and faith are post hoc. Children are taught there is a god and the notion becomes absorbed as part of their socialisation and enculturation. You're much more likely to have an experience of a particular God as an adult if you are properly primed from birth.

As an example: the guy who wants to drink all day long. Not getting behind the wheel — minds his own business. Seems to me he should be free to do so — he’s harming no one but himself. But lately I think that’s somewhat wrong. The guys healthcare costs has societal effects and so on.

I have trouble determining where to draw the line between personal freedom and social responsibility, I guess. Ownership is one particular aspect that gets caught in this context. — Mikie

Interesting. I once had a chat to a surgeon friend who said that he was getting sick of spending hours operating on people who had lung cancer from smoking. Why waste his valuable time and the hospital's resources on people who don't take care of themselves? This strikes me as an authoritarian or 'right wing' formulation of responsibility and consequences. But I understand it.

The inference that the cancer was caused by smoking may not be correct either. I have lost two friends from lung cancer who never smoked. People get lung cancer.

Does private ownership entitle one to do whatever one wants to what is owned? — Mikie

I can't answer this. But suppose a billionaire purchases original and important works of art and important pieces of ancient craft just to incinerate them. Can this then be seen as a broader harm? There's the vexed question too of what do we count as ownership? Does a white Australian guy actually own Australian land just because he paid for it? Does he own the twenty thousand year-old cave paintings on his ranch?

Heritage protection laws around the world obviously say that ownership doesn't provide the right to do whatever you want with a heritage building or a cultural artifact.

But saying it's a matter of taste is again tantamount to making it a matter of opinion, which it isn't. — Wayfarer

Not opinion. I think we are drawn to forms of reasoning and inferences which appeal to our aesthetic sense. The very fact that certain ideas become the focus of our attention is itself an expression of preferences and attractions.

Is the philosopher a sophist or a statesman or something else? If something else then what? The question is left open. — Fooloso4

Thank you. How interesting.

I do not regard Plato as an idealist. The term is anachronistic. — Fooloso4

Is there a debate about whether Plato is an idealist or not?

I recently discussed why the Forms are hypothetical and why rather than being the reputed originals of which other things are said to be images they are themselves images. — Fooloso4

It becomes a carnival hall of mirrors to me.

Thank you.

We know there can be no way of definitively choosing between those two possibilities, but one or the other might seem more plausible. What seems more plausible to individuals comes down to what their grounding assumptions are, that is it is a matter of taste; and there is no way to show that it could be anything more than a matter of taste. — Janus

Your reply resonates with me. And this conclusion is one I have often suspected, as a matter of taste informed or driven by aesthetics. Some varieties of meaning making (ontology) seeming to be more aesthetically pleasing than others.

Thank you. It's been an interesting discussion. I try to keep my atheism as polite and respectful as I can. I think of it more as a case of my not having a sensus divinitatis (to borrow from Calvin). Reasons and inferences come later. I have good Christian friends (who are not dogmatic and very self-critical). Much of my criticism of Christianity comes from Christians like Bishop John Shelby Spong - rather than the Dawkins route. I have a theory that in many (but not all) instances, the more you delve into anything, the more it can seem reasonable - whether it be Islam or existentialism. Once you get to know the conceptual framework and the nomenclature, it is easy to be seduced by worldviews, especially if a few key ideas already align with some of your encultured views and preferences.

The ambiguity in this is that if the stronger argument is the most persuasive argument then the most reasonable argument can become the weaker argument. In other words, Socrates too makes sophistic arguments. The difference has to do with motivation. While the sophist seeks to profit, Socrates attempts to persuade his interlocutors of such things as it is better to be just. — Fooloso4

Thanks for this. I have sometimes wondered about this and I guess I arrived at the idea that the difference between Socrates and the sophists is good faith - a desire to uncover truth - via judgement, balance, the accumulation of wisdom.

As an aside, I haven't been following this discussion closely, but do you have any 'go to' arguments you use as a rebuttal of idealism or platonic forms? I struggle to see how concepts exist independently from human language. Would you take any cues from Plato's own act of self-criticism in the Parmenides? Or do you think that contemporary phislophy can do better with this subject?

If you have some sympathy for non-essentialism, can you assess nihilism and the range of possible identities it affords humans? — ucarr

I suspect nihilism is impossible. People always believe in something. But as an academic exercise - or a position we might claim to hold - nihilism can take many forms; it can be cheerful and buoyant, or despairing and suicidal.

Being ridiculous for a moment, let me assert humans cannot become cats. — ucarr

Sure. And cats can't become humans. I have no problem with definitions and classifications. The issue is how far can you push these to arrive at intrinsic qualities. It's these I am skeptical about. But I am not a philosopher or scientist, so I can't say I'm an anti-essentialist, I'm just an interested onlooker with a skeptical eye.

Are you an essentialist? A theist? And why?

Essence is not one of your favorite words. Other people talk about it, but such conversations have never drawn you in. — ucarr

It's not a matter of favorite or not. I don't recall a particular conversation about essence. As a would be existentialist in the 1980's, it came up a bit in relation to Sartre - the famous 'existence precedes essence'. It's a word people use in different ways. If someone is using it for soul it doesn't resonate particularly.

What about essential? Do you sometimes find practical uses for this form of the word? — ucarr

Not sure why we exploring words. It's essential one wears a seatbelt when driving a car. It's a word which can be used in a myriad of ways.

If a sarcastic and witty friend said to you, "Foolishness, fragility and spouting off are essential parts of human nature." how would you reply? — ucarr

If the comment interested me, I might ask why my friend felt that and listen to their reasoning. But of itself that is not a particularly interesting observation. I have no particular commitments to views on human nature and I am fairly certain I am not an essentialist.

A quotation from the book can serve as a nutshell summary:

A blend of semen and engine coolant. — Jamal

Sounds like many a man cave I have visited...

Have you ever read TC Boyle's Water Music? Politically incorrect, but an astonishing, enchanting use of English in the manner of Lolita (but not about young girls) also something in common with John Barth's baroque The Sot-Weed Factor but less intricate and confusing.