[ironchef texmex]

Pity is such a seditious emotion, it's almost shameful. But sadly it empowers. I don't think you really mean that, Ironchef. No truly good man could ever pity; think about it.

Oh, believe me, after spending my days seeing two-year-olds going to CPS because their crack-addict mothers just made her sixth suicide attempt, it's not like I have a lot of pity left over for some basically nice guy who just can't seem to find his way through the eye of the needle. And I would argue that anyone who can't find sympathy for the plight of others could never qualify as a "truly good man".

But I'll think about it. Do me a favor. While I'm pondering pity, spend a moment or two yourself and think about the phrase "And I was free to hate those who were cruel to me".



Well, look at that. I'm all caught up. Shoot. I'm not even going to bed for another hour. Hmm, what did I used to do with my free time before this thread. Hmmmm. :)

[clockwirk]

Given the staggering success of science in answering questions without recourse to supernatural forces,
Science can explain how some things work, yes. I would say that it raises more questions than it answers. Needless to say, science is no closer to answering the fundamental, original questions than it ever was.

the most conservative approach to things like the 'complexity problem' in evolution is to simply assume we have yet to fully understand the natural mechanisms at work.
And faith is assuming that we have yet to understand the "mechanisms" of God, although that's a coarse way for me to put it.
It's funny, the newest (maybe not newest) theory out there is that there are a billion billion universes and we just happened to be in the one where everything worked out. This from a respected cosmologist (Martin Rees), who admits that the theory is untestable and completely unknowable. This is science???? He basically recants the whole base of science, that the world is knowable.
Aside from gratifying some kind of need to 'prove' God's existence, there really are no grounds to infer something as remarkable as human-like omnipotent intelligence, as a means to explain that complexity.
I'll admit that it's a failing of the church that the world thinks we believe in a "human-like omnipotent intelligence." To do so is to argue from ignorance (scientists don't know therefore God is the answer), a classic form of fallacious reasoning.
I'd say scientists do know therefore God is the answer.

We humans are hardwired to anthropomorphize, to understand complicated phenomena in intentional terms, which is to say, in terms of reasons, motives, purposes, and so on. This is why it took us so many thousands of years to come to grips with the methodologies of science, and why so many of us has such difficulty accepting the results of science. The fact that things started happening as fast as they did once we did see our way past our hardwired shortcomings seems a pretty powerful indication that we're onto something.
Hey, I love science. I subscribe to Astronomy magazine fer cryin' out loud. You have to remember that the guys who started all of those methodologies believed in a knowable universe and that God had made it knowable. I know most right-wingers you guys see are the literal 6 day creation types, who think that the earth should still be the center of the universe, but we're not all science hating freaks.

Left to our devices, we humans are actually horrible when it comes to the evaluation of theoretical truth-claims - which is why science was so hard for our civilization to come by, and why even still, despite being the greatest instrument of discovery in the history of the human race, so many have so little understanding or appreciation of it. Our debility in this regard is a simple psychological fact, one which, I think anyway, should make us dubious of absolutely all traditional theoretical truth-claims.

Especially those that so obviously play to our weaknesses for things like flattery (you were made in God's image, he has a plan for you, you are one of the chosen, elect, etc.), certainty (believe as little children believe, just have faith), and so on...

Well my friend, you've got to believe something. You either have full and complete faith in your own senses and the senses of others to know the universe of which you are a part, or you believe in a higher authority who actually does know the universe and has chosen to reveal how it works to mankind, or you don't believe that the universe is knowable.

I've known too many people to believe #1, and #3 just makes me want to kill myself...........

By the way, I think your books rock. :D

[ironchef texmex]

Ironchef, I am truly glad that faith allowed you to overcome those painful situations that you had to deal with. And I am truly glad that you attribute your good luck to God. It certainly has made you a conscientous participant in your religion, as opposed to someone who merely makes the motions. But my point was very well summarized by you when you said if your father had come home with a copy of LOTR you might be walking around in elf clothes. Read your own words again. They were so very astute.


Oops, almost missed this one. Hmm, now which point were you talking about that I summarized? Are you uncomfortable with the fact that a person could believe in God under one set of circumstances, but not another? That one is straight Biblical doctrine as well. It's a little more complex than just 'what home you grew up in' though. Here's the Bible's take on salvation:

First off, no one really knows who is saved or not except The Big Guy. The Bible says that no one is condemned for what they did not know (nobody goes to hell for ignorance) so even if the Bible is 100% literally true then there will still be some Muslims and Buddists and others in heaven who never actually had the knowledge during their lives to accept or reject God based on the revelation of Jesus. I don't know what criteria they'll be judged on. The Bible doesn't say (probably because it's nobody's business but God's).

After that it gets blunt. Everyone has a chance, but not the same chance. Some people get a better chance than others. I mean it is BLUNT. Anyone who thinks the New Testament is all love and cheek-turning should try Romans chpt 9 on for size. And I know how different it could have been too. The group probably least likely to ever accept are the ones that grew up with domineering or apathetic fathers. They tend to have an extremely difficult time picturing a heavenly "father" as being the embodiment of love. So what would have happened if my dad never turned it around? The odds are I would be arguing against, not for the Bible right now. What? You think I didn't know that? After all these posts you still think I'm some victim of blind, unreasoning faith?

You know, most Americans these days have been so inundated with the sales slogun 'you deserve' (you deserve good hair color, you deserve a one on one broker, you deserve the most luxurious mid-sized sedan) that they practically go from one bit of 'good luck' to the next and never even consider it in terms of good fortune. They deserved it.

I just don't see it that way. My response to my good fortune is simply thank you, thank you, thank you.

[Dawnstorm]

Post #151 Dawnstorm -- "How does one defend God against Occam's Razor?"

There are only possible options for existence:
A) The universe is infinite.
B) The universe is finite and was created by an infinite.

With the limitations of subatomic examination we will probably never be able to derive the answer scientifically. So which sounds more reasonable? You exist through the random processes of a universe with no beginning, or that you exist because of the will of a sentient being with no beginning?

I don't know about you, but I can't wrap my brain around either one. Kind of goes back to that "understanding the infinite" thing. Miriamele and Gary have both said they disbelieve at least in part because that's what they want. I said I believe at least in part because that's what I want. I think it's that way for everyone. In other word, I think this is one debate where Occam can't help us.

Well, Occam can't help us decide between the two. But we could take a hint and suspend judgement until something comes along which changes the picture.

Or we could just ignore Occam and choose anyway. I won't. I don't think it's worth it.

Science can explain how some things work, yes. I would say that it raises more questions than it answers. Needless to say, science is no closer to answering the fundamental, original questions than it ever was.

I agree with the gist of this. I don't feel, though, that the questions you're probably referring to are fundamental.

It's funny, the newest (maybe not newest) theory out there is that there are a billion billion universes and we just happened to be in the one where everything worked out. This from a respected cosmologist (Martin Rees), who admits that the theory is untestable and completely unknowable. This is science???? He basically recants the whole base of science, that the world is knowable.

The multiple world interpretation of quantum behaviour is just that: an interpretation. And if he admits it's not knowable, he implicitly admits that it requires faith to believe in that interpretation.

We shouldn't confuse the scientific method with the scientific world view. The multiple world theory is a philosophical problem, not a methodological one. Does that mean Mr. Reese can't put forward the proposition within the scientific community?

Whether the world is knowable or not has fairly little impact on the usefulness of the scientific method. Just like wether God exists or not has little impact on the miraculousness of miracles (although we'd be talking of magic, or of paranormal activity, or what you might think of).

Conversly, the usefulness of the scientific method doesn't prove the scientific world view. The existance of miracles doesn't prove God.

Personally, I find the scientific world view (wich includes the randomness of the infinite universe the Ironchef has referred to above) more appealing than God. But, then, that's just I being me.

Why is it so complicated to believe in a being that you can't, by nature of your being, understand?

When it comes to the crunch, I understand fairly little. The problem I have with God is that I can't even find a concept spefic enough to not understand.

[Scott Bakker]

Well my friend, you've got to believe something. You either have full and complete faith in your own senses and the senses of others to know the universe of which you are a part, or you believe in a higher authority who actually does know the universe and has chosen to reveal how it works to mankind, or you don't believe that the universe is knowable.

Well, it's not either/or, but otherwise, why do you have to believe 'in something,' Clockwirk? Why not simply live in doubt?

Look at science, which, because it's institutionally structured to take advantage of doubt, is in a continual state of flux, is continually adapting itself to new curveballs, and is continually generating new and extraordinarily powerful claims (which it will most certainly replace in due course). Doubt does begets learning and understanding. That's what makes it the engine of science's success.

Religions tend to shut these things down, often in flabbergasting ways. I'm always curious as to the number of contradictions believers seem able to digest without batting an eye (as I said, we're quite horrible at belief-formation). For instance, is there freedom of speech in the Kingdom of Heaven? Isn't hell simply a concentration camp and body-oven rolled into one?

[Gary Wassner]

"Oh, believe me, after spending my days seeing two-year-olds going to CPS because their crack-addict mothers just made her sixth suicide attempt, it's not like I have a lot of pity left over for some basically nice guy who just can't seem to find his way through the eye of the needle."

That' a bit too patronizing. Question your motives and question the satisfaction you get by making such comments. Then talk to me about humility. Faith shouldn't be a weapon now, should it? But unfortunately, way too often it is. True, it's often hard to debate without the benefit of tone of voice, but certain things, once said, reveal much more than the words anyway.

I don't have even the slightest animosity for your perspective. I understand it to a degree, and though it is not mine, I honestly do respect it. I have no desire to convert you to any other. Nor do I have any expectations nor interest in the prospect of you changing it. It's yours. I am the last person to claim that there is one way, so my agenda is quite different. Your knowledge and reasoning abilities are both impressive, and I actually find the indignance in your tone refreshing. It enhances the spirit of the debate. I just don't know if it exemplifies your perspective or undermines it.

[Scott Bakker]

Whereas I take it to be symptom of the underlying importance of this debate, as opposed to something like heart function. Were you 'freed' by the knowledge that the heart has four ventricles, not three or five? Freed in the same way that Gary and Miriamele spoke of?

I find this interesting, Tex, since last we crossed swords you were unwilling to acknowledge that your beliefs were debatable! Change of heart, maybe? Are you actually willing to admit that you could be wrong about God?

As for the freedom you refer to, I hate to say it, but with believers it seems to boil down to freedom from fear and doubt. There's pills that can do that. Me, I think we just need to suck it up as a species.

We. Don't. Know. Squat.

Like I say, it's as obvious as the nose on our faces, and yet everywhere I turn, there's muslims, christians, buddhists, hindus, occultists, wiccans, and so on, and so on, saying, 'I know! I know!'

And the curious thing is, though the claims they make don't seem to fit the world in anything remotely approaching a convincing manner (because they all claim to give us transcendent knowledge which is to say, knowledge that can't be verified, which is to say rank opinion), they seem to fit our all too human weaknesses and fears remarkably well. And in this sense they 'free' us from quite a number of things. From the indifference and complexity for the world. From our hardwired fear of death. From our hardwired dislike of uncertainty. And so on.

Don't you think that's even a little fishy? Belief systems severed from the possibility of any real verification, which somehow, magically, give us all the goodies we humans seem to want.

I, for one, smell a fish.

[Gary Wassner]

A rotten fish, but the incense has always covered it up so well. One hand slaps and one hand strokes, one hand is limp and one hand grips.

I'm kinder than you are Scott, in my approach. It's that insipid sentimentality of mine. I recognize that my emotional needs can't be stilled by my intellectual proclivities, so I yearn for an answer. I just stopped looking toward something as totally absurd to me as God is. Yes, we are hardwired to yearn and to believe. So if so, is it strength that prevents us from accepting untruth or stupidity?

[Scott Bakker]

I'm kinder than you are Scott, in my approach. It's that insipid sentimentality of mine. I recognize that my emotional needs can't be stilled by my intellectual proclivities, so I yearn for an answer. I just stopped looking toward something as totally absurd to me as God is. Yes, we are hardwired to yearn and to believe. So if so, is it strength that prevents us from accepting untruth or stupidity?

Apparently there's a group of researchers who claim to have isolated neurological difference between those inclined to believe and those inclined to doubt. I've yet to check it out for myself, but if you think, as I do, that our 'credibility circuits' are more the result of the function our beliefs played as hunter-gatherers than their veracity, then what we see is pretty much what you might expect. Since hunter-gatherer societies simply cannot afford to be skeptical - doubt is not a good way to facilitate the social cohesion required to survive dangerous environments - you would expect credibility to be the default, and doubters to be only frequent enough to prevent the dominant belief-system from becoming so ossified it cannot adapt to catastrophic change.

As a species, we're hardwired to be marginally critical, nothing more. Since social systems turn on the repetition of actions, and since actions turn on beliefs, given that we humans depend upon complex social systems to survive, you would expect the preponderance of any given population to have beliefs fixed by function first and fact second.

[Gary Wassner]

Researchers also just determined that women and men have perceptual differences liked to the chromosomes. For example, when a woman gives directions, she tends more to use landmarks to map the way. When a man gives directions, he tends to do so with measures of distance. The study said that this is hardwired, as you like to say, and sex linked.

But as far as belief-formation is concerned, I don't know if we could ever determine how much is innate and how much is learned, if it really matters. I would guess that the motivation is the key, and a conceptual sense of self preservation manifests itself in many different actions. Junkies actually think that they need the next fix to survive. The physical effects of addiction certainly influence the mind's sense of what preservation means. So what addiction is it that leads one to believe that God is necessary? Or that the concept of God is ridiculous? One is so addictive and so comforting, is their a chemical change in the body when one embraces belief? And does that change when one begins to doubt? Are we religiously bi-polar?