Board index ‹ Christianity

[33 AD]

> I have run into many intellectuals who have both bias and blind spots. Some have a presuppositional set that doesn't allow for metaphysical realities and so closes off legitimate consideration of those areas. Some have an emotional antagonism to Christianity through some hurt or offense somewhere in their life, and they play it out through their philosophy and science.

So the overwhelming majority of philosophers must fall prey to these cognitive mistakes with regards to Christianity, yes?

[jimwalton]

No, I never said or implied "the overwhelming majority." I think it's unfair to generalize. What I said was that I have run into many who have bias. Some have a presuppositional set that doesn't allow for spiritual realities, and some have emotional antagonism. That is not to imply "the overwhelming majority." I have no grasp on the percentages, and it's unfair to make up a number to fit my position.

[No Username]

Hey there, appreciate the response. Definitely well crafted.

I think I understand your point of view in regards to Occams Razor in that you find that God is more probable and that God should be the default. But I still assert adding God makes it more complex, and adds more assumptions.

If you say God used natural process to create the universe, then it involves all that complexity, plus god, which is additional complexity and contradictory to Occams Razor.

The fine tuning argument could remain the same if our universe had different parameters. We wouldnt know otherwise. So what universe are we comparing it to that makes you think it's fine tuned? None, as far as I can tell. We have no evidence that a universe could be any other way than our is. That does not imply God, unless you can demonstrate your claim that it's very unlikely the universe would exist without God. The big bang model does not imply God. That is only an afterthought with religious bias. Can we show certain phenomena raises the probability of God? No, it's not able to demonstrated, no matter how smart it sounds.

Speaking of smart, you mentioned Hawking a couple times. Here is a quote from him:

There is no God. No one directs the universe.

Science does a great job explaining how, but cant necessarily say why about many things. That is more for philosophy.

You say you are a creationist, just an evolutionary one, so I'll pose the same question again. What makes your biblical interpretation more correct than that of different sect of Christianity? What reliable method are you using to interpret the bible that they are not using?

Science interprets evidence and has checks and balances such as peer review and scrutiny to help its case. As far as I know, religion has no such thing.

Sorry for assuming you haven't considered else. That was lame of me. I guess there is a good example of my bias toward religion, I assumed you were born into and have a bias to have god as the answer and then look for ways of how God can fit reality. So I suppose I am projecting that into you, which certainly isn't fair, or cool. I do have some reflecting to do on this, because of you, so thank you for that.

Interesting analogy, but I dont know about extraordinary. The odds that this machine would have instead drawn ten Queen of Spades were exactly the same as drawing ten Aces of Hearts, or any other combination of cards. So any ten cards drawn in the order they were drawn were equally possible, or equally impossible. In the card example, any other drawing of cards and the kidnappee would not have been alive to see. Perhaps like our universe, if the observed regularities (dont want to say law to imply law giver) of our universe were different, we might not be here. This is hardly surprising.

Lets consider probability again. If someone were asked to calculate the odds 500 hundred years ago that people fitting the description of you and I would be typing these exact words right at the exact times we did, wearing what we've got on in rooms that look just like they do now what would they be? Impossible to caluculate? And yet here we are. Do these odds prove we need a God to account for this happening?

I'll leave you with some Douglas Adams. Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, “This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact, it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!” This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be all right, because this World was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.

[jimwalton]

Thanks for the discussion.

> If you say God used natural process to create the universe, then it involves all that complexity, plus god, which is additional complexity and contradictory to Occams Razor.

Yet God makes far more easy sense of the complexity than naturalism does. If we go from an intelligent, personal source (God) to intelligent, personal humans, that makes sense. If we go from an impersonal source that has nothing to do with intelligence or personality (naturalism) to intelligent, personal humans, that's more of a stretch.

Either way we have the complexity (and wonder) of nature. But theism gives sufficient explanation whereas science struggles to explain it.

> So what universe are we comparing it to that makes you think it's fine tuned?

There is no comparison. Despite philosophical and scientific speculation, there is no evidence for any other universe(s). All we know is that ours is fine-tuned for life.

> We have no evidence that a universe could be any other way than our is.

That's no particularly relevant. Suppose each time I deal I get 4 aces and one wild card. Of course, you get suspicious. But I assure you that each time I deal, getting these 4 cards is no less probably than any other set of cards. You wouldn't buy it for a minute.

With God as creator, fine-tuning is not at all improbable. Without God, it is quite improbable. Therefore theism is to be preferred to atheism.

You say maybe the universe couldn't be any other way. And yet it could. The constants and quantities of these measurements are not due to physical necessity—because they are independent of the laws of nature. String theory predicts there are 10^500 different possible universes consistent with nature's laws, and yet these are the ones we have.

Let me try this. Suppose I'm convicted of treason and sentenced to be shot by firing squad. There are 8 sharpshooters. They all take aim and fire 8 shots each. Oddly enough, they all miss. I have two choices: (1) they intended to miss; (2) they intended to kill and all missed all 8 times. On evidence, #1 has more credibility than #2, and #1 is the preferred explanation.

So, I'm seeing a remarkably fine-tuned universe, when there could be gazzillions of other possible universes. I have two choices: (1) the universe has been designed by a powerful and intelligent being; (2) The universe has come to be the way it is by some chance process that doesn't involve a designer. On evidence, #1 is more likely than #2, and #1 is to be preferred. Granted, we could not and would not exist if the universe were not fine-tuned, but how is that relevant? It is what it is.

> That does not imply God

As I've explained, I think fine-tuning does imply God.

> There is no God. No one directs the universe.

Yep, I'm familiar with this quote. I wasn't quoting Hawking to imply he was theistic, but only to show that he also saw how finely-tuned the universe is.

> Science does a great job explaining how, but cant necessarily say why about many things. That is more for philosophy.

Correct. It's not within science's arena.

> What makes your biblical interpretation more correct than that of different sect of Christianity? What reliable method are you using to interpret the bible that they are not using?

Just like every other field, we do our best to be knowledgable, wise, and accurate. Professional archaeologists disagree in their interpretations; so also historians. Even in science there are different schools and different interpretations of things: fundamentally, general relativity and quantum mechanics are both highly confirmed and enormously impressive; unfortunately, they can't both be correct. We all do our best to arrive at the truth and to keep learning.

> Lets consider probability again. ... Impossible to caluculate? And yet here we are. Do these odds prove we need a God to account for this happening?

If someone were able to accurately make such a prediction 500 years ago, it would scream out for an explanation. If they attributed their knowledge to God (as many biblical prophets did), then that would have to be seriously considered. Heck, we can't even predict the weather accurately, let alone the score of tomorrow's playoff game, let alone a situation 500 years to the future. The odds would tell us to look for an unnatural explanation, yes.

> Douglas Adams

I find, in my experience, that people in generally are tragically incompetent at interpreting their circumstances. Christians telling me things like "God gave me a green light when I needed it," or "God gave me a great parking space!" Give me a break. But such drivel is not unique to Christians. I hear it from every corner. People are just bad at this game. That's why we need a reference point: a reliable authority to give us a grounding for wisdom. Some find it in science. Some find it in religion. Some in anger, some in cluelessness ("I just live each day as it comes." — Gag me with a spoon). I personally find it in Christianity and science, trying to be as wise through life as I can be, learning as much as possible, and finding both the truth and joy wherever it lives and bringing that into my life.

The puddle story: atheists and religious alike are guilty of the prejudging a situation with a convenient explanation until it challenges someone into sheer disequilibrium. At that point we have three fundamental choices: stick to our story despite the evidence, get angry about how hard everything is and how little sense it makes, or pursue a new level of perception and truth. May I always be found in the 3rd choice.

[Vesture El]

> I think you're really grasping at straws with this one. Seriously—they were all deranged?

I never said deranged. I just questioned the degree to which they were rational in some beliefs. People are capible of believing things for bad reasons as evidenced by the members of any religion you don't find credible. There are people now who believe in ghosts and homeopathy and countless other things with no rational basis so I fail to see what was stopping at least some people back then accepting claims they didn't have good reason to.

> No, that's not my argument. What I am saying is that the commonality of experiences lends credibility to the legitimacy of the experiences.

Legitimate in what sense? There are plenty of common experiences we know don't map to reality dreaming for one and optical illusions for another. There's commonality in accounts of alien abduction and that alone doesn't give us reason to believe the accounts are due to what the people who experienced them think is true.

> I consider supernatural visions to be supernatural.

I agree if a supernatural vision would be supernatural by definition but that tells us nothing about how we'd establish a given vision was supernatural.

> I would off the top of my head define "supernatural" as "not of the natural world or part of natural phenomena."

And how would you prove anything that exists matches that definition?

[jimwalton]

> People are capible of believing things for bad reasons as evidenced by the members of any religion you don't find credible.

I agree that people are capable of believing things for bad reasons, but I find it odd that you center on "religion" as if it's the culprit here. Politics is a much clearer example. Another is economics. Even history qualifies, as all history is interpretation, ancient or modern. Even science, yes science, has its share of people believing things for bad reasons.

> There are people now who believe in ghosts and homeopathy and countless other things with no rational basis so I fail to see what was stopping at least some people back then accepting claims they didn't have good reason to.

I know this is a religious site, but people believed Brett Kavanaugh was guilty without rational basis. People believed Iraq housed weapons of mass destruction. Educators thought common core was a great idea. Politicians in Kennedy's era thought the invasion of the Bay of Pigs had a rational basis. Religion is far from the most guilty party in these matters.

>> Commonality of experience
> Legitimate in what sense?

Experiences can be the effects of reality ("I think I hear a car outside," and there indeed is one), or effects of sensation ("I think I hear a car outside," and there isn't one). Into which category do religious experiences fall? Rationally speaking, it could be either. There are many witnesses of both public and private religious experiences. The question of the hour, of course, is their legitimacy. I mean, if i walk into the corner of a table and there is a subsequent bruise on my thigh, there is good evidence for both the table and my injurious experience with it. But not all experiences are physical (and therefore scientific). Right now you are experiencing reading what I have written, and that experience is both rational and valid (or why did I waste my time?). Perception is how we process reality.

In the absence of special considerations, experiences can be taken as genuine, and there is no rational reason to isolate religious experiences as being in a different category. Since there are substantial logical and scientific reasons to believe in the existence of God, it is intuitively right to take the way things seem to be as the way they are.

By way of illustration, we know we are not alone in this world because we know there are others persons in it. We also believe that each person, generally speaking, has a mind that can reason, feel, remember, intuit, etc., just as ours can. yet we have absolutely no concrete evidence of anyone else's mind. We can never really tell if they think, what they are truly thinking, what they are truly feeling, if their pain is real (if they just walked into the corner of a table), etc., and yet we suppose it's true. We never really know someone else's mental state (joy, fear, pain). Yet I can reasonably construct a sound inductive argument for the conclusion that I am not the only person who thinks and reasons or has sensations and feelings. How do I know? When it comes right down to it, other people's minds are inaccessible to all other people. I cannot prove by science what you are thinking, or even IF you are thinking, or if you are feeling pain. I go by experiential clues—common sense. As it turns out, the bulk of my commonsense beliefs about these other minds is more probable than not. I have evidence that other sentient beings exist. I don't need scientific proof that they think to rationally assume they feel, think, and hold beliefs.

Using this analogy, it's reasonable for me to assume that, in the absence of special considerations (such as mental illness, the influence of drugs, etc.), experiences can be taken as genuine. Efforts to restrict religious experience from validity have been unsuccessful and are unjustified.

You may say, "Yeah, well a religious experience is nothing like walking into the corner of a table." I'm not sure. The only reason you know what a table is is because of your past experience with tables, and being taught that the letters T-A-B-L-E linguistically symbolize that thing you just walked into, and that you often put your food or your stuff on. How can I scientifically confirm your past experience with the table was a reliable and legitimate experience? I can't. But we use common sense: people's experiences are generally valid in the absence of special considerations.

We even have abstract, non-sensory experiences: people with tinnitus hear ringing. Is it a true experience? People notice colors, dimensions, velocity. Perception is how we process reality. We recognize that perception is valid experience. We are justified in holding many perceptual beliefs about objects having non-sensory characteristics that cannot be backed up by science.

I may say to you that woman on the other side of the room is my wife. You may ask me to prove it by science. Hmm. All I have is a piece of paper. Is my experience legitimate? Given the lack of special considerations, yes.

[33 AD]

But since the overwhelming majority of philosophers are not Christians, one of the following must be true: either (1) the overwhelming majority of philosophers fall prey to these cognitive errors and are unreasonable about Christianity or (2) there are valid intellectual reasons to reject Christianity after assessing all the evidence honestly.

At the beginning of this conversation, you seemed to be saying that (2) is false, which would imply that (1) is true. But you’re not now willing to affirm that (1) is true, which implies that (2) may be true. It has to be one or the other to account for the data.

[jimwalton]

> (1) the overwhelming majority of philosophers fall prey to these cognitive errors and are unreasonable about Christianity

I think it's unfair to generalize. Every smart people have biases. Even intellectuals reason from their guts as well as from their heads. Even philosophers have mental blocks, prejudices, experiences that color the way they think and perceive.

> (2) there are valid intellectual reasons to reject Christianity after assessing all the evidence honestly.

I am not sure I would grant that there are valid intellectual reasons to reject Christianity any more than there are valid intellectual reasons to deny the reality of the Holocaust. I am so thoroughly convinced that Christianity is true, just as I am convinced that the Holocaust really happened, that in the end of things it will be shown beyond the shadow of a doubt that it is true and has been true all along.

Now, let's take the Holocaust as an example. Arguments are put forth to show how it's all a hoax. Are they intellectually valid? Their perpetrators would say "Definitely so." Some of those who believe the Holocaust is real may even say, "Hmm, I see your point. You're making sense." Those who know the truth (the Jews who are still alive who were in those camps) would say none of the evidence presented in the form of logically valid reasons turns out to be legitimate, because the Holocaust really happened. In the end, if "valid logical thought" doesn't lead us to the truth, was it "valid logical thought" after all?

[No Username]

Very wise words. Gives me lots to ponder. Thanks for the chat!

[Scape211]

Now, let's take the Holocaust as an example. Arguments are put forth to show how it's all a hoax. Are they intellectually valid? Their perpetrators would say "Definitely so." Some of those who believe the Holocaust is real may even say, "Hmm, I see your point. You're making sense." Those who know the truth (the Jews who are still alive who were in those camps) would say none of the evidence presented in the form of logically valid reasons turns out to be legitimate, because the Holocaust really happened. In the end, if "valid logical thought" doesn't lead us to the truth, was it "valid logical thought" after all?

I was thinking along this line too. Largely in connection the narrative of Jesus. Since the Gospels were written and dispersed within a time that some people who were alive during that time experienced the resurrection, they would have clearly been able to refute the claims as a hoax if it were. But since that didnt happen, we are lead to believe (along with plenty of other evidence) that the resurrection did take place.

However, this all makes me fear the day 1000+ years from now when people are debating if the Holocaust really happened....ugh.