Here is My Friend, a Deluded Man.
May I present to you, Dr. William Lane Craig:
Look at how confident he is. I'm sorry but he reminds me of the moonies.
It's not that we demand that God provides x, it's that we need for God to provide x. Without x we don't have evidence to believe. And if we cannot have any reasonable expectations about what God does, then how can we have a reasonable faith? How can a smart man just not get these two rudimentary points?
Look at how confident he is. I'm sorry but he reminds me of the moonies.
It's not that we demand that God provides x, it's that we need for God to provide x. Without x we don't have evidence to believe. And if we cannot have any reasonable expectations about what God does, then how can we have a reasonable faith? How can a smart man just not get these two rudimentary points?
94 comments:
If genies exist, then we would expect to see blank.
We do not find blank.
Therefore genies do not exist.
That is enormously presumptuous. How dare you suggest that genies must fulfill your expectations. Be humble and revise your expectations if you find they are not met. You can't dictate to genies that they must act in accordance with your expectations.
jon, exactly...exactly!
You think Craig is deluded, check out this guy!
http://christiancrosstalk.blogspot.com/
Let me paraphrase.....
On the scale of dumb***es, this guy goes beyond a**hat, in to the f***tard zone.
Seriously, this guy is way out past left field. More like out in the parking lot next to the hot dog stand.
1)If John Loftus exists he would write all his posts in cockney rhyming slang (because I think it would make them more interesting)
2)His posts aren't
therefore
John Loftus doesn't exist Q.E.D
Surely we would expect our expectations to be wrong about a few things when it comes to something as complex as God (otherwise we'd have to be God!)
James, James, join the group of deluded people like Craig. You already have good evidence to think I exist, silly. Your expectations have been more than fulfilled when it comes to whether or not I exist. In fact, short of meeting me personally, all of your expectations about me have been met. And if you need me to, I will meet with you to show you I exist.
James, to let you see what I'm talking about here, do you think God could at least meet one of my expectations? While I would probably need more than one met, how about at least one?
Surely we would expect our expectations to fall short in every situation conceivable that allows for a glimpse at God with any reliable evidence when it comes to something as sneaky as God
Fixed it for you.
The difference between your example and the ones above is they leave in a "blank". You can put a lot of things in that blank and still get no God. Things like evidence for the Patriarchs, Genesis, Exodus, the flood, or many other behavioral things you'd expect from God given what He Himself says He'll do in the Bible.
It's telling that you had to try to make it completely off-the-wall bogus in order to get it to fit for John.
Frank Walton, JP Holding, Ray Comfort, Todd Friel, and the armies of demagogues and fools would read this:
“The way that I know Islam is true is first and foremost on the basis the revelation of Allah in my heart. This gives me a self authenticating means of knowing Islam is true wholly apart from the evidence. And therefore, if in some historically contingent circumstances, the evidence that I have available to me should turn against Islam. I don’t think that that controverts the revelation of Allah. In such a situation, and I should regard that simply as a result of the contingent circumstances that I am in, and that if I were to pursue this with due diligence and with time I would discover that in fact that the evidence—if I could get the correct picture—would support exactly what the revelation of Allah tells me.”
...And argue that this person was dogmatic, deluded, and simply intellectually dishonest. They'd be right.
Of course, what if someone as intelligent as Bill Craig said this?
In fact, he did. Here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-fDyPU3wlQ
Actual quote:
"The way that I know Christianity is true is first and foremost on the basis the witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart. This gives me a self authenticating means of knowing Christianity is true wholly apart from the evidence. And therefore, if in some historically contingent circumstances, the evidence that I have available to me should turn against Christianity. I don’t think that that controverts the witness of the Holy Spirit. In such a situation, and I should regard that simply as a result of the contingent circumstances that I am in, and that if I were to pursue this with due diligence and with time I would discover that in fact that the evidence—if I could get the correct picture—would support exactly what the witness of the Holy Spirit tells me."
With this in mind, his "debates" aren't intellectual exercises with scholars, but merely opportunities to witness to crowds and make money and converts for Bill Bright's organization (CCC) and Intervarsity.
Locke had it right:
“Every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly; and where it fails them, they cry out: ‘it is a matter of faith and above reason.’" - John Locke
Bill Craig is very intelligent, don't think that he isn't.
Has anyone read "Time and the Metaphysics of Relativity" or his dual defense of the A-Theory of time, "The Tenseless Theory of Time" and The Tensed Theory of Time"? or, "The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz"? These books are top-level metaphysics, full of great scholarship and intelligent, powerful and well thought arguments.
The Kalaam argument, defended by him for longer than Star Wars has been around, captures our intuitions and our notions of causation very well. I think there fiercely are damming problems with it, but his arguments, honed for over three decades, is something people should work with and has implications for logic, space, time, causation, epistemology, and even ethics.
Bill Craig is certainly not stupid, though some of his arguments would give one the illusion otherwise; assuredly, he is forced to defend claims and principles that he is dedicated to as a dogmatic, fearful believer. Studying Craig and his arguments over the years, including many, many interviews with him, I see the depth of his scholarship as mirroring the depth of his fear of dying. This has no bearing on the utter absurdity of some of his arguments (or the strength of them) but it is illuminating as the engine of his scholarship.
If God exists, then we would expect to see blank.
We do not find blank.
Therefore god does not exist.
That is enormously presumptuous."
Yeah, he's made this line many times.
In my experience, when I've made a scintillatingly atheological point about the attributes or behavior of a certain deity, many people respond with this.
It is a rhetorical way of saying, "Well, God's ways are just mysterious."
Of course, if it was "enormously presumptuous" to mull on the behavior of a god, then all theologians would be out of a job.
I laugh a little thinking of Bill Craig saying this to Gary Habermas or JP Moreland with the kind of indicting, pompous, and angry intensity he says it to, say, Austin Dacey or Kai Nielsen.
I agree with you One.
Craig's argument is (to coin a phrase) self-refuting.
If God is so inscrutable, then the claims Craig himself makes to know him and his character as revealed through the Holy Spirit to Craig personally are ludicrous. So if presumption regarding God's nature on the part of the atheist is not allowed, then it is most certainly verboten in the case of the apologist.
God is so inscrutable we have no idea why he would make the world as he did, but we can know with certainty that Jesus was his son and he died on Calvary in fulfillment of prophecy.
Bart Ehrman's alternate theology that God is really an evil being named Zulu who is holding Jesus in torment but requires him to reappear on earth at intervals to people to delude them into thinking Christianity is true is a theologically logical and defensible position.
It is time that apologists be made to show their work.
"In other words, a rejection of such a belief system like militant Islam trumps the evidence, for I cannot conceive of believing it unless the evidence is completely overwhelming, and there is no such thing as overwhelming evidence when it comes to these issues."
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you there, but it seems like you've given Christians a perfectly good reason to retain their beliefs even in the face of the evidence you have provided in your books. Atheism to them is like Islam is to you...ie giving up all hope in an afterlife and admitting that morals are trial and error based entities with nothing more than a promise of preserving this miserable species.
Just a thought, I'm sure you'll refute me but I look forward to learning :)
One, that short video of WLC is very enlightening.
Has anyone ever thrown these words of his back in his face such as you have done above? How could he possibly respond to this?
It reminds me of John's outsider test. You would think that even WLC would have to see that his statement would never work for an outsider.
Paraphrasing: "I ignore all evidence that is contrary to my position, cuz I know I am right."
Wow. And we agnostics and atheists are close minded and presumptuous.
After listening to that idiots comments i've come to the conclusion that people of "his ilk" haven't got the slightest inkling of of what they're going on about. According to him everything that the 'scientists' have been doing over the last centuries or so has (is tantamount to) in fact, been a complete 'waste of time' -geneticists,evolutionists,microbiologists, & every other ologist to boot- furthermore, he goes on to say: there's no proof whatsoever that "evolution" ever exists & all the 'discoveries' the scientists have made are based on FALSE premisses; in actual fact i'd lost count at the no. of times he'd mentioned that word 'premiss' therefore, it just goes to show how little they know about the subject....they're TOTAL 'ignoramus's' if you ask me!....
Thanks for the comments everyone, especially "One." Evan, where does Bart Ehrman talk about his alternate theology?
John said:You already have good evidence to think I exist, silly.
I already have good evidence that God exists however that’s a completely different debate. You are fully aware that Dr William Lane Craig has written extensively on the evidence for Christianity and so he is not advocating blind faith but dealing with a specific objection.
John said:In fact, short of meeting me personally, all of your expectations about me have been met.
In fact, short of seeing the resurrection for myself, all my expectations have been met.
John said:n fact, short of meeting me personally, all of your expectations about me have been met.
I think God has. I won't go over all of them but for example:
I see no reason why God should test Adam & Eve, or punish them and their children and their children’s children with such horrific consequences for such a mistake
Most Christians don't base their theology around original sin. We have all committed many of our own sins for which we should be punished for.
I see no good reason for the animal pain caused by the law of predation
Seeing as you're not a vegetarian yourself, and in this day and age you could easily become one, God might ask you the same question.
Nor do I see why God should send a flood to kill practically all human beings.
God gives us a reason - "The Lord saw how great man's wickedness had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of this heart was only evil all of the time. (genesis 6v5) In other words God gave us freewill (and unless you're saying we'd be better off being bits of broccoli God has good reasons for this), with freewill comes responsibility. Man chose evil and is thus accountable for his actions. If we are wicked we deserve to be punished.
If everything about Christianity makes rational sense to an omniscient God, then God could’ve created human beings with more intelligence so that the problems of Christianity are much more intellectually solvable than they are.
There's a big debate at the moment around whether we should, if it were possible, make computers as intelligent and self-aware as people are. This seems a similar issue and thus not clear cut. I can see numerous problems which would be caused if God made us as intelligent as he was and no doubt if he made us as intelligent as him we'd use that intelligence to destroy the universe or something stupid.
God could’ve made this universe and the creatures on earth absolutely unexplainable by science, especially since science is the major obstacle for many to believe.
No - because if the universe was a random mess unexplainable by science then we could not exist and you'd have a strong case for atheism (i.e one of reasons I believe in God is because the universe is ordered)
I think these are enough examples.
Damien said:
It's telling that you had to try to make it completely off-the-wall bogus in order to get it to fit for John.
Unfortunately the truth is not determined by what you find easy to believe. Many people are Christians and so God can't be being too unreasonable in providing us with evidence. You at least have to justify why God would have to behave as you think He should. I don't think God is being unreasonable. If I go to my doctors and they tell me to take a pill what do they do? They are very clear on the important stuff (e.g how should I take it?, when?, should I take it with water? etc) and vague on the unimportant stuff (e.g why is this colour than that?, how exactly does it scientifically work?) God is the same. If I trust my doctor without him telling me everything he knows why should I treat God with greater scepticism?
one said:With this in mind, his "debates" aren't intellectual exercises with scholars, but merely opportunities to witness to crowds and make money and converts for Bill Bright's organization (CCC) and Intervarsity.
I'm pretty sure William Lane Craig uses arguments because he believes they are good arguments. I think he sincerely believes what he says. There is no more evidence for this than for claiming John Loftus is only an atheist to make money out of book sales.
one said:
It is a rhetorical way of saying, "Well, God's ways are just mysterious."
If nothing God did made sense then you would have a point however what Christians are saying is that we have to allow for the fact that God might sometimes do stuff we don't fully understand. A dog probably looks at a lot of stuff people do and doesn't understand it. Why? Because people are more intelligent and higher beings than dogs are. Now the difference in understanding between us and a dog is nothing compared to the difference in understanding between us and God. Why do you assume that everything God does should make sense?
Sometimes I think about the fact I can't fully comprehend God. Then I realise that I can't fully comprehend the universe either.
How is the universe expanding into an infinite amount of nothing? I don't know but I accept it as being true. Thus the fact that I can't comprehend the creator of the universe isn't a particularly big stumbling lock for me.
billf said:Paraphrasing: "I ignore all evidence that is contrary to my position, cuz I know I am right."
No - you have to take the evidence as a whole. Do I only believe in evolution if scientists can explain every transition to me? No. So do I believe in God unless I have answers to every possible question? No
Craig is a genius!
Dr Craig has shown on many occasions that he lacks intellectual honesty. This must be a problem for religious apologetics of all stripes. If your job is to refute arguements against your religion, how many do you have to see, that you can;t answer directly before you begin to doubt. Whats the alternative to doubt? As Bart mentioned so eloquently in his deconversion story on this site, he had two alternatives, absolute belief or reason. I think Craig hit that junction and choose absolute belief.
When he argues, he picks arguements that do not address the criticism directly, he creates strawmen and he plays hard and fast with the idea of intellectual debate.
Thats not to say he isn't clever, he surely is. But how can he claim to be debating someone when he will accept no evidence against his position. Has his position altered one iota from any debate? Has he conceeded any arguements against god? As One said, Craig isn't interested in scholarly debate to determine which of competing theories is right. He is preaching to the converted, trying to keep christians in the flock by giving them arguements, no matter how flawed, that allow them to feel comfortable about their faith. He is preaching to the choir so to speak.
Serious academics should not debate such a person unless he changes his behaviour. Whats the point in debationg someone who isn't going to abide by the spirit of debate.
I suppose one might do so to debunk Craigs ideas to the audience, but never to Craig.
James, I never asserted such an absurd proposition that deluded people like Craig and you cannot also be smart people. The fact that he and probably you are smart isn’t the point. You can gerrymander around the issues all you want to but you’re banking on what’s possible, not what’s probable almost every single time.
As far as human free will goes, check this out.
Cheers.
I already have good evidence that God exists however that’s a completely different debate. You are fully aware that Dr William Lane Craig has written extensively on the evidence for Christianity and so he is not advocating blind faith but dealing with a specific objection.
And people have written extensively on the problems with accepting his "data" as reliable, and the biases he engages in when evaluating such "data".
In fact, short of seeing the resurrection for myself, all my expectations have been met.
Then you have no evidentiary expectations.
Most Christians don't base their theology around original sin.
Genesis 3; God punishes generations of man for the sins of their progenitors. That's why women have pain at childbirth, among other things. It is also a recurring theme in the OT, as well. Yet you reject the claim that God punishes the descendants of transgressors. So, we have clearly established that "most Christians" don't believe in the Bible when they find it theologically inconvenient.
Seeing as you're not a vegetarian yourself, and in this day and age you could easily become one, God might ask you the same question.
John does not have the ability to eliminate animal pain. John has made no claims to be omnibenevolent. Tu quoque is a well established logical fallacy.
God gives us a reason - "The Lord saw how great man's wickedness had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of this heart was only evil all of the time...Man chose evil and is thus accountable for his actions. If we are wicked we deserve to be punished.
Yeah, damn evil toddlers! How DARE they suck their thumbs after their parents told them to stop! God'll teach them, you just wait and see! Drown those darn toddlers right out of existence to eliminate their wickedness!
In addition to being ridiculous, the Flood is also unsupported by science, and impossible without a largescale violation of physics. Maybe you should ignore this as you do other inconvenient parts of the Bible.
This seems a similar issue and thus not clear cut. I can see numerous problems which would be caused if God made us as intelligent as he was and no doubt if he made us as intelligent as him we'd use that intelligence to destroy the universe or something stupid.
If we were as intelligent as God, we would be omniscient and would know the consequences of our actions. He could also make us omnibenevolent as well. Claiming an all-powerful God requires an all-responsible God, a problem Christian theology has never been able to reconcile.
No - because if the universe was a random mess unexplainable by science then we could not exist and you'd have a strong case for atheism (i.e one of reasons I believe in God is because the universe is ordered)
Untrue; the universe would not have to be a "random mess" to be unreachable by science. For example, God is unreachable by science because He can change as He wishes when we try to measure Him. God could have made the universe the same way; regular as clockwork until someone tries to figure it out, then completely unrepeatable. He is, after all, omnipotent.
Unfortunately the truth is not determined by what you find easy to believe. Many people are Christians and so God can't be being too unreasonable in providing us with evidence.
I find it hard to believe that the same person wrote those two sentences directly after each other, and without attempting satire. Truth is not determined by what's easy to believe, and since Christianity is apparently easy to believe it is probably true.
You at least have to justify why God would have to behave as you think He should...If nothing God did made sense then you would have a point however what Christians are saying is that we have to allow for the fact that God might sometimes do stuff we don't fully understand.
So God is mysterious except where you have figured Him out. Nice. And how do you know when you have figured Him out, and when you THINK you have figured Him out but are wrong? We have already shown that you ignore scripture when it is inconvenient (please, PLEASE reply and say that you believe in the literal truth of all scripture!), so unless you think religion should be based on your personal theological convenience (and somehow I don't think that is what Luther had in mind) then you have not shown how you know.
Wait, wait, let me guess...God told you!
Sometimes I think about the fact I can't fully comprehend God. Then I realise that I can't fully comprehend the universe either.
But you can tell the difference between knowledge and ignorance with the universe. If I think that gravity is a repellant force, I can check. If I think that God is Trinitarian, how can I check? I can't--I can argue, persecute, claim conflicting divine revelations, etc. but I can't provide evidence either way.. You can't justify ANY belief about God within rational thinking without God providing verifiable evidence, which He has not.
How is the universe expanding into an infinite amount of nothing? I don't know but I accept it as being true. Thus the fact that I can't comprehend the creator of the universe isn't a particularly big stumbling lock for me.
The difference is, if you cared to take the time and effort, there exist people who can cure your ignorance regarding the expansion of the universe. They can show you data, models, make testable predictions based on their models, etc.
No - you have to take the evidence as a whole. Do I only believe in evolution if scientists can explain every transition to me? No. So do I believe in God unless I have answers to every possible question? No
I can use evolution to make falsifiable predictions, ones that will come true time and again and that would be highly unlikely were evolution false.
Make a testable prediction (not post-diction) of a highly unlikely event based on your God's existence, one that requires your God to exist and would be falsifiable.
Here's a prediction--you won't. The God of Elijah is not what you profess; your God trembles away from the sight of people, hiding Himself in an ever-shrinking box of the currently unexplained.
"Mais où est Dieu dans tout cela ?" (But where is God in all of this?)
"Je n'ai pas eu besoin de cette hypothèse." (I had no need for that hypothesis.)--Pierre-Simon Laplace to Emporer Napoleon I
Shygetz said...Then you have no evidentiary expectations.
LOL! This was the show stopper for me. It should stop his whole show!
If someone would like to do me a huge favor here, I sure would love to have his words here written out for analysis. I would be very grateful to someone for this.
If someone would like to do me a huge favor, I would love to have his words written out for analysis. I would be very grateful to someone if he or she wrote down the words in this video clip.
John,
The alternate theology is not one Ehrman believes is true, it is one he uses to show that there is no proof that Christian theology is true.
You can read the entire transcript of his debate with Craig here:
http://www.holycross.edu/departments/crec/website/resurrection-debate-transcript.pdf
People have a strong attachment to their instinct for survival. Choosing to believe in a higher purpose instead of just accepting that we are impermanent and are hosts to self replicating, improvement seeking, survival motivated genes makes them feel like they might have a chance to prolong their existence with an afterlife by holding such a belief. Unfortunately, one can believe this as hard as they want to, but if it is not true, then it just isn't going to happen. Because the motivation is “survival,” living beyond death, It may be these very same selfish genes that have determined them to pursue this belief despite its lack of verity. I think some of our genes have evolved more so then others and have thus taken us on a route that supports a more reasonable, tested, and promising course to survival.
Let's not forget what Craig said in his argument with Peter Slezak in 2002:
So when then does the absence of evidence count as evidence that something does not exist? Well theorists of knowledge agree that the lack of evidence for some entity X counts as positive evidence against X’s existence only in the case that if X did exist then we should expect to see more evidence of X’s existence than what we do see....
Now apply that then to the case of God, the absence of evidence for God’s
existence counts as evidence against God’s existence only in the case that if God did exist, then we should see more evidence of his existence than we do in fact see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-5PFRc2FIA
So of course, we can never conclude that God does not exist from lack of evidence since we must always be humble enough to adjust our expectations to whatever evidence God happens to give us.
Yes, of course. We can no more disprove god then we can disprove miniture invisible pink unicorns living under our beds. You can't disprove something in which their is not even evidence exist in the first place. It's been said time and time again, the burden of proof is on the believer. Prove it, or pack it up and trash it.
1 Kings 18
Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. "O Baal, answer us!" they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.
At noon Elijah began to taunt them. "Shout louder!" he said. "Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened."
CARR
Craig is certain this is a disproof of the existence of Baal.
For the Bible is never wrong.
I can see numerous problems which would be caused if God made us as intelligent as he was and no doubt if he made us as intelligent as him we'd use that intelligence to destroy the universe or something stupid.
First, we can already do some pretty stupid things, like start a nuclear war or create a biological weapon that could destroy all life on earth. It seems our ability will continue to grow in this area regardless.
Second, you're confusing intelligence with knowledge. Since we're not as intelligent as God, we might know that doing X and Y causes Z, but not really know how the entire process works. Nor may we realize that Z interacts with Q, which will cause some problem down the road. However, if we were as intelligent as God, it's unlikely we would do something 'stupid' because we'd know better.
Third, just because we might know about X doesn't mean we're omnipotent and could actually cause X to happen or stop X from happening. That is, unless God is just really smart and not omnipotent in the first place.
Fourth, God made us intelligent enough to build weapons of mass destruction, yet hasn't made it clear which God is the true God. This is conflict is currently causing some very destructive behavior in many regions of the world. God could easily clear this up, but doesn't seem interested in doing so.
No - because if the universe was a random mess unexplainable by science then we could not exist and you'd have a strong case for atheism (i.e one of reasons I believe in God is because the universe is ordered)
If we couldn't explain why anything happened, then our only option left would be a supernatural explanation, such as God. Instead, when we discover why something happens, we find it occurs in accordance with and because of these physical laws. We have no evidence that indicates anything has occurred because of a supernatural cause.
Nor did the lack of a universe with physical laws stop God from supposedly creating angels, which were said to have "freewill" and made the choice to reject God. As such, an environment with physical laws seems unnecessary for choosing or rejecting God. In fact, as argued elsewhere on DC, a physical universe makes it difficult if not impossible for us to have true freewill without being strongly influenced by God's creation.
If I go to my doctors and they tell me to take a pill what do they do? They are very clear on the important stuff (e.g how should I take it?, when?, should I take it with water? etc) and vague on the unimportant stuff (e.g why is this colour than that?, how exactly does it scientifically work?) God is the same. If I trust my doctor without him telling me everything he knows why should I treat God with greater scepticism?
We trust doctors because we have statistical and historical evidence that suggests doctors are knowledgeable and effective in their field and the drugs they proscribe go through a rigorous testing period before they are put on the market. We also know that becoming a doctor takes several years of education and internship. Even with all of this preparation, some people still seek second opinions on matters of importance.
This is in comparison to God, who is said to purposely hide himself from us and even intentionally cause people not to believe in him. We can't see him, or test his effectiveness because it's taboo and God actively prevent it.
Would you own a car which the manufacture refuses to allow safety test and even hides the inner workings of said car from view? As far as you know, the car could be powered by a nuclear reactor that could melt down in an accident or the brake cables could be made of bailing twine. Nor could you be sure that the car would even travel in the direction you want it to or start when you need it. Would you actually feel safe in this car or depend on it on a daily basis?
A dog probably looks at a lot of stuff people do and doesn't understand it. Why? Because people are more intelligent and higher beings than dogs are. Now the difference in understanding between us and a dog is nothing compared to the difference in understanding between us and God.
People didn't create dogs from nothing. God created us knowing full well that we would not be able to understand him. Since God can't create things that are undefined, he must have planed it that way from the start.
Sometimes I think about the fact I can't fully comprehend God. Then I realise that I can't fully comprehend the universe either.
Bingo!
You have cast the universe into a omnipotent, omniscient 'sentient' being in an attempt to make it more comprehensible. You prefer God because our very survival instinct is programmed to look for anything that appears to be sentient and show's intelligence.
At the time, we simply didn't know any better. Today, people still hold on to this view because it's easier for them to relate to the universes if it has human like attributes. One could say, "better the devil you know than the universe you don't."
John said:James, I never asserted such an absurd proposition that deluded people like Craig and you cannot also be smart people.
Nor did I say you were stupid. That comment was not for your benefit but for the people who have been posting unjustified ad hoc attacks towards William Lane Craig (e.g sadeviltan said:'it just goes to show how little they know about the subject....they're TOTAL 'ignoramus's' if you ask me!....)
Shygetz said:And people have written extensively on the problems with accepting his "data" as reliable, and the biases he engages in when evaluating such "data".
I have read numerous books and writings from both sides and have reached a different opinion to you. I think the evidence for Christianity is a vast subject so I don't want to side-track this thread onto it. If anyone hasn't listened to a full William Lane Craig debate then I would encourage you to do so rather than watching short, carefully selected clips. Nonetheless I realise that most of you have.
Shygetz said:Yet you reject the claim that God punishes the descendants of transgressors. So, we have clearly established that "most Christians" don't believe in the Bible when they find it theologically inconvenient.
No, I said that most Christian don't base their theology around it (i.e these are a few passages in the Bible and these are not the key reason we should go to Hell) Do we have group responsibility? Many atheists seem to think Christians should take responsibility for things others have done in the name of Christianity and so to a certain extent yes.
Shygetz said:John does not have the ability to eliminate animal pain. John has made no claims to be omnibenevolent. Tu quoque is a well established logical fallacy.
Personally I have no problem eating meat. I believe that God separated us from other animals however I can't see how an atheist who believes we're just one step us the chain of evolution can justify eating meat. Because John isn't a vegetarian himself it has left me confused - would a God that lets us eat meat be better or worse than one which doesn't allow it? My expectations are of a God who allows us to choose if we want to be vegetarian and so I'm really struggling to see what John's big objection is. Would a world without animals be betters? No, I don't think so. Why shouldn't God give us permission to eat them if we want to?
Shygetz said:Yeah, damn evil toddlers! How DARE they suck their thumbs after their parents told them to stop! God'll teach them, you just wait and see!
I suppose God could have made all the adults disappear into a cloud of dust and left the toddlers to slowly die without their parents there to help them. I'm not sure that this would have been better. Maybe they could have grown a bit older and then become evil themselves. I can't see how you know that God didn't choose the best course of action.
Shygetz said:In addition to being ridiculous, the Flood is also unsupported by science, and impossible without a largescale violation of physics.
There is no evidence for a global flood. A local flood on the other hand is a different matter (Even sceptics admit this, e.g Now for more local floods: There is genuine archaeological evidence of one or more real, catastrophic floods in the valleys of the Fertile Crescent (where the myth originated).).
Shygetz said:If we were as intelligent as God, we would be omniscient and would know the consequences of our actions. He could also make us omnibenevolent as well. Claiming an all-powerful God requires an all-responsible God, a problem Christian theology has never been able to reconcile.
Firstly I don't think intellect gets in the way of becoming a Christian - there's a whole range of IQs amongst both atheists and Christians. I don't buy into the idea that if only we were a bit more intelligent we would all be Christians.
Secondly your argument proves nothing. To sum it up: God should make us all knowing so that we know why God can't make us all knowing. We hit circular reasoning.
Untrue; the universe would not have to be a "random mess" to be unreachable by science. For example, God is unreachable by science because He can change as He wishes when we try to measure Him. God could have made the universe the same way; regular as clockwork until someone tries to figure it out, then completely unrepeatable.
I actually enjoy science and so I'm pleased that God gave us the gift of science. But is this really what's getting in the way of you becoming a Christian? Quantum Mechanics broadly matches your description but no atheists has suggested that it's the evidence they've always been looking for.
Shygetz said:So God is mysterious except where you have figured Him out.
That's true for anything. The universe is a mystery apart from the bits we've figured out. I'm a mystery to everyone else apart from the bits of me they've figured out. Why should God be any different?
Shygetz said:I can use evolution to make falsifiable predictions, ones that will come true time and again and that would be highly unlikely were evolution false.
Whilst I do believe in evolution I would be interested in what predictions you can make with it?
Shygetz said:your God trembles away from the sight of people, hiding Himself in an ever-shrinking box of the currently unexplained.
If you want to find God then he makes himself very clear. You've proberly come across the 'godisnowhere' example. Some read it as 'God is nowhere' Some read it as 'God is now here'. The same is true with the universe, you look at it and see no God. I look and see God everywhere.
Scott said:First, we can already do some pretty stupid things, like start a nuclear war or create a biological weapon that could destroy all life on earth. It seems our ability will continue to grow in this area regardless.
And we only need to look at history to see that the intelligent people are the most dangerous. I think God chose the right level of intelligence to give us, unless you can prove otherwise. I think your objections are similar to Shygetz so I won't repeat myself.
Scott said:Fourth, God made us intelligent enough to build weapons of mass destruction, yet hasn't made it clear which God is the true God. This is conflict is currently causing some very destructive behavior in many regions of the world.
The biggest wars involving weapons of mass destruction are not generally religious ones. Both the world wars weren't, for example.
Scott said:If we couldn't explain why anything happened, then our only option left would be a supernatural explanation, such as God.
So are you now saying God should have made us completely ignorant so that we always had to fall back on God and understood nothing about how the world worked? What's wrong with the idea that God didn't go to one extreme but gave us a sensible level of intelligence?
Scott said:We trust doctors because we have statistical and historical evidence that suggests doctors are knowledgeable and effective in their field
I have experience and historical evidence for Jesus to show that God is knowledgeable. Then there's the universe...surely if God could make the universe then that must give us some confidence in Him!
Scott said:Would you own a car which the manufacture refuses to allow safety test and even hides the inner workings of said car from view?
But God has not left us in complete ignorance about his actions etc. The point is that I would buy a car even if I didn't know absolutely everything about it. I have a rough idea about how it works but would I really need to know everything? If I told the car sales man that he had to take me through the exact mechanics of how the engine worked in case it was a nuclear reactor in disguise I would be laughed out the garage.
Shygetz said:God created us knowing full well that we would not be able to understand him.
We understand what we need to know in order to have a loving relationship with God. Stop creating a false dichotomy between understanding everything about God and understanding nothing about God.
Shygetz said:You prefer God because our very survival instinct is programmed to look for anything that appears to be sentient and show's intelligence.
Or maybe I believe in God because he exists. Nonetheless you criticise others for not basing their beliefs on evidence and yet you haven't got a drop of evidence behind that statement.
Finally, how should God reveal all this to us? Should he have included a book in the Bibe 10 million pages long entitled 'every stupid atheist question answered'?
Or maybe I believe in God because he exists. Nonetheless you criticise others for not basing their beliefs on evidence and yet you haven't got a drop of evidence behind that statement.
Here's a drop of evidence. When someone sees Jesus on a grilled cheese sandwich, is it because Jesus is on a piece of toast? Or is it because they are hyperactively looking for evidence that Jesus is active in the world?
Please give me a complete answer. If you feel this is not evidence that there is such a human characteristic please explain why you think people make pilgrimages to see the Virgin under a bridge or in tree bark.
John, I chuckled when you requested help to type out Craig's video (the arrogance!) and then I started typing for fun. Which lead to the doc here. However - I didn't realize I'd typed the wrong video out so I started the right one, but by then my eye balls were popping, so I made it to the point you see. Maybe someone else can download the word doc and finish it up - and having someone else proof it is good, too. Or - if my eyes relax I'll go back in and finish tomorrow. Let me know if anyone adds to it.
www.ghosted.tv/craig.doc
Sorry, don't know hyperlink by heart.
I typed out some of it on my blog.
"Personally I have no problem eating meat. I believe that God separated us from other animals however I can't see how an atheist who believes we're just one step us the chain of evolution can justify eating meat."
I've always had a question about this kind of thinking, and I don't know if it's been discussed here at DC or not, since I've only been reading here for a little over a month. I did a search, but didn't find it.
I suppose this question applies to both creationists and Christians who believe in evolution, but moreso to the latter, I'd think. If human beings are separated from animals, how about is this done? The answer I get most is, "humans have a soul." This is what people tell me makes the entire difference from raising human beings as livestock and cattle as livestock. It's also a big player in their beliefs on stem cell research and abortion.
But it makes one wonder what God classifies as a human being, especially if you think evolution is true. Does he measure the same way we do? Did our ancestors have souls? When did the first person with a soul appear? What about cousins to our species, like Neanderthals and those Hobbit peoples? They displayed some of the exact same characteristics of early homo sapiens, but did they have souls? Would it have been okay to consume them or raise them in pens for slaughter?
If homo floresiensis had survived to present day on their Indonesian island, completely undiscovered until, say, 1940, and they were equally developed to the basic native tribes of South America or Africa, would we treat them like homo sapiens, or would it be justifiable to pluck them from their habitat, stick needles in them, cut them open, or have them for dinner?
Damien, sadly I think the best answer for you is to look at how we treat chimps and gorillas who are our extremely close relatives.
There are strains of e. coli that are more different from one another genetically than humans and chimps. There is no structure in the human brain that is not found in the chimp brain -- yet you can see what we do to them.
Thanks so much hold nic, and Vinny. I'm writing another book and I wanted to deal with what Craig said here.
Evan said:Here's a drop of evidence. When someone sees Jesus on a grilled cheese sandwich, is it because Jesus is on a piece of toast?
It may come as a surprise having buried yourself in atheist literature however most Christian do not base their faith around a piece of toast. I might as well examine the success of Zeitgeist the Movie and say 'look, atheists will believe any old nonsense'.
I agree that we naturally believe in God, but why is it because of our survival instincts? What is the survival advantage that a belief in God gives? Maybe there is no survival advantage and therefore Darwin's survival of the fittest cannot explain our natural desire to believe in God. Richard Dawkins spends a whole chapter of the God Delusion justifying why he doesn't think people believe in God due to survival advantages. Dawkins ends up pretty much stumped refusing to even look at the possibility our brains are preconditioned to believe in God because God exists! Maybe atheists are the ones refusing to follow the evidence.
Damien said:I suppose this question applies to both creationists and Christians who believe in evolution, but moreso to the latter, I'd think. If human beings are separated from animals, how about is this done?
I don't think we define similarity, in this respect, based upon genetic code. A piece of toilet paper and a £20/$20 note are materially very similar but one has considerably more value. Why? Because we gave one more value than the other. In the same way God gave us more value than other animals.
When, in the evolution chain, did this occur? If we look at our level of self-awareness, intellect and understanding compared to a monkey it is thousands of times greater than between any other two species on the chain. How bigger jump something can make in its evolution is an interesting question. If a moth can change colour in one generation maybe our consciousness made a great leap someone between us and monkeys.
I'm interested to know how you justify eating meat, animal testing, keeping monkeys in zoos etc if we really are virtually the same as other animals.
james,
there is good evidence to show that religion is a natural phenomena. Dennet gives a decent overview in his book breaking the spell, he uses Boyer and Altrans books in his argument.
basically the minds 'alogirithms' are coopted to create a 'virtual person' that is god.
If you don't want to take cognitive science word for it, then do your homework and take a course in human prehistory and ancient civilizations, near east mythology, how the brain works, comparative religions and the philosophy of morals, values and ethics.
Then look at the trend in the bible for god to go from a person to in the garden, and get grow consistently more complex as the scope of human understanding grew.
it should be clear as an blue sky on a summer day.
I agree that we naturally believe in God, but why is it because of our survival instincts? What is the survival advantage that a belief in God gives?
I notice you fail completely to address my question which rephrased is this: Are believers who see representations of holy images on banal items accurately finding evidence of God?
Your argument dismisses the question without answering it but seems to suggest you agree that they are NOT accurately finding evidence of God.
If this is the case, then you are tacitly acknowledging that regardless of its origin, it is entirely possible for people to seek out evidence of divine agency where in fact none exists and that this is indeed part of human nature.
I would argue that this is not just a human but a basic animal response that has profound survival value.
Imagine you are riding a horse and a plastic sack blows across the road in front of you. Your horse shys away (if you are lucky), or rears, or stops or something of that nature.
What is your explanation of what the horse is doing?
James,
Are you saying you draw a line where cognitive function reaches a certain tier? Which tier would that be?
Would all of genus homo be considered human beings, or just homo sapiens and why? What constitutes adequate intelligence? Keep in mind that homo sapiens were simple stick throwers for between 240,000-190,000 years.
I don't know why you're quick to dismiss genetics as an indicator. Our genotype and phenotype are what I think makes us homo sapiens. If you want to say the gift of intelligence is the key, then what do we do about super-intelligent computers or perhaps if our knowledge of genetics becomes great enough we could diddle with chimpanzees and have them learning English (and growing the anatomy to speak it) and smoking cigars. Would they make it into heaven?
Did Neanderthals have a right to life? They used fire, had homes, tools, weapons, buried their dead, may have had language, etc... Perhaps they are extinct because God revealed to prehistoric man through the Holy Spirit that it was okay to eat Neanderthals?
I can defend eating meat with the same excuse a bear would use. Same basic principle with animal testing. Zoos don't particularly harm animals, in fact, they play a big part in keeping species from going extinct.
My views on animal rights come from more practical and political premises than philosophical or religious ones. While I find importance in animal welfare, I cannot see any animal yet capable of entering into a social contract which would garner it the same rights and responsibilities humans give to themselves. However, if a chimpanzee or a robot ever proved able to understand what it is to be "human" then they'd surely be eligible.
We don't even treat children as fully capable humans with full rights and responsibilities.
How can Craig fail to see that the fine-tuning argument is dead if we can't make reasonable expectations about what sorts of worlds the god of theism would want to create?
How can Craig fail to see that the fine-tuning argument is dead if we can't make reasonable expectations about what sorts of worlds the god of theism would want to create?
I have wondered this myself. Clearly God could will that life exist with any combination of gravity and nuclear forces whatsoever. Aren't all these supposedly fine-tuned ratios just arbitrary expressions of God's inscrutable will in the first place. Isn't it presumptuous of Craig to assume that anything God willed to be stuck together could possibly become unstuck as a result of a change in tuning.
The same goes, btw, with his abductive argument for the resurrection of Jesus. For *that* argument depends on what we would expect god to do with respect to raising Jesus from the dead.
Evan said:Are believers who see representations of holy images on banal items accurately finding evidence of God?
In the case of the Christian who found Jesus on a piece of toast, no, they have not found evidence for God. But it does not therefore follow that all Christian arguments are equally stupid. Nor does it follow that every Christian is out making the evidence fit their hypotheses. All you've show is that a minority of Christians, which I am not part of, do this.
Evan said:it is entirely possible for people to seek out evidence of divine agency where in fact none exists and that this is indeed part of human nature.
and I've seen atheists create objections to Christianity where non exist.
Evan said: Imagine you are riding a horse and a plastic sack blows across the road in front of you. Your horse shys away (if you are lucky), or rears, or stops or something of that nature.
False analogy - believing in God and a horse having a bag blown in its eyes have are two completely different things.
Damien:Would all of genus homo be considered human beings, or just homo sapiens and why? What constitutes adequate intelligence?
In this case, intelligence is what makes us human. I'm talking about having a good enough awareness of the world around us to be responsible for our actions etc. I might not know the exact time and date when we turned from monkeys to humans but then why would I?
Damien said:If you want to say the gift of intelligence is the key, then what do we do about super-intelligent computers
Super computers just cruch numbers quickly - they have no genuine awareness of the world around them.
Damien said:of genetics becomes great enough we could diddle with chimpanzees and have them learning English
We can't possible know if we could ever be able to play around with a Chimp's genes to make it learn English. This is pure speculation.
Damien said:Did Neanderthals have a right to life?
It depends if the Neanderthals were human in conciousness. Knowing the answer to the question might be interesting, but would not prove or disprove God's existence. This is a scientific question and like a lot of scientific questions the simple answer is 'we're working on it'
Christians get accused of taking a God of the Gaps approach - i.e if we cannot explain it God did it. You seem to be taking an atheism of the gaps approach - i.e if Christians can't explain it then God doesn't exist. I have a rough idea but cannot give you every bit of detail.
Damien said:I cannot see any animal yet capable of entering into a social contract which would garner it the same rights and responsibilities humans give to themselves.
My point - and so where do these rights come from if not from God?
Escapologist said:How can Craig fail to see that the fine-tuning argument is dead if we can't make reasonable expectations about what sorts of worlds the god of theism would want to create?
Because he has thought about it in more depth than you and understood the argument properly.
Vinny said:Isn't it presumptuous of Craig to assume that anything God willed to be stuck together could possibly become unstuck as a result of a change in tuning.
No - the fine tuning argument demonstrates that the universe did not come about by chance and wasn't an accident. It says nothing about God's characteristics. God could make an unfine tuned universe but nothing (i.e the atheist position) cannot.
Escapologist said:For *that* argument depends on what we would expect god to do with respect to raising Jesus from the dead.
I know you think your onto something big but think through what you're saying. The resurrection takes some facts and says 'what is the best explanation of those facts?' In other words it looks at the evidence without expecting anything in advance.
God could make an unfine tuned universe but nothing (i.e the atheist position) cannot.
It is extremely presumptuous to say what nothing can do and what it cannot do.
Nothing's powers are so far beyond those of mere humans. Nothing has abilities that we cannot even dream of and unless you have been around for the last 13.5 billion years to watch as nothing expands and changes the universe around it I think you are in a poor position to be declaring its impotence.
What kills people when they are sent into space without a suit? Nothing. It's power is awesome. Nothing can freeze fire and destroy all sound.
You need to learn more about nothing before you put it in such a tiny, human-centered box.
I don't think I'm on to anything big here; these sorts of points have been raised ad nauseum against Craig and others in debate and in print. I'm sorry, my friend, but it's built into the logic of both Bayesian and abductive inferences that one has to be able to know what to expect on the assumption of the truth of hypothesis if one is to know how probable that hypothesis is, given the data. Thus, the hypotheses:
H1: God raised Jesus from the dead.
and
H2: God fine-tuned the universe for life.
Can generate scrutable probabilities only if we can be justified in thinking that we'd expect God to do such things if he existed.
The responses to John's post are leading to three questions:
1). If the transcendent God exists and his primary motive toward us is that we acknowledge his existence, what sort of evidence might we expect?
2). If the transcendent God exists and his primary motive toward us is that we have a properly-aligned filial relationship with him, what sort of evidence might we expect?
3). Which of these two describes the God of Christian Theism?
Kevin H
Evan:Nothing's powers are so far beyond those of mere humans.
It logically follows that the more tuned and complex the universe is the less likely it is to come about by chance. This is an argument. To suggest that you should know everything about what God should be like is not logical and not an argument.
Exapologist said:I'm sorry, my friend, but it's built into the logic of both Bayesian and abductive inferences that one has to be able to know what to expect on the assumption of the truth of hypothesis if one is to know how probable that hypothesis is
Maybe you go in with expectations and assume that if reality doesn't match your expectations reality must be wrong. All of human knowledge would fall apart if we took your approach. Imagine if scientists had to be able to answer every question about the universe before we recognised that the universe exists. We would have no history if whenever a historical figure did something nobody expected we assumed they never existed.
If we have good historical evidence for the resurrection (which people such as Dr William Lance Craig have given time and time again) then it does not matter if they had no expectations before looking at the evidence that the resurrection happened.
James, you say "It logically follows that the more tuned and complex the universe is the less likely it is to come about by chance."
This is only logical if you know anything about how the constants of the universe derive themselves, and can suggest alternate, working universes that would contain beings within them that can become aware of the universe around them. Obviously since we exist the universe must be structured such that we can exist.
All arguments that state otherwise are simply begging the question, assuming the premise that the universe as it is is unlikely in such a way as to suggest a deity.
All things are unlikely. All actual outcomes are rare. Deal out a hand of cards; it was incredibly unlikely you would deal that set of cards. Does this somehow mean God created the sequence of cards dealt?
Evan said:Obviously since we exist the universe must be structured such that we can exist.
That isn't the question we're trying to answer - we're asking why the universe is structured in a way that allows us to exist - not is it!
Evan:All arguments that state otherwise are simply begging the question
The argument for the fine tuning of the universe does not deny that we exist so this is irrelevant.
Evan:ssuming the premise that the universe as it is is unlikely in such a way as to suggest a deity.
Which is what the fine tuning argument does.
Evan:All things are unlikely. All actual outcomes are rare.
No - the probability of getting any card is 52/52 - i.e certain. The chance of getting an ace is 4/52, the ace of hearts 1/52. This how probabilities work. Because there are lots of possible universes which cannot sustain life it is valid to ask why we happened to end up with one which does. I.e the probability of this universe is 1/ all the perceivable universes where we could not exist. In other words the fine tuning argument is based on facts and probability. The argument 'God doesn't fulfil all of my expectations' relies on neither.
The argument for the fine tuning of the universe does not deny that we exist so this is irrelevant.
No, it is not irrelevant. I deal out 52 cards in a given sequence. The chance that I would deal out that particular sequence of cards is 52! (52 factorial) or 10 raised to the 63rd power.
That means there was only a 1 in 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,
636,856,404,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000, 000,000,000,000 that that particular sequence of cards would be dealt.
After the cards are dealt, is it proof there was a miracle?
On earth in 2008, people exist to make arguments about the fine tuning of the universe, therefore -- the cards have already been dealt. Any attempt to divine the circumstances before humans existed as uniquely improbable (as opposed to routinely improbable, as in the dealing of the deck of cards) is assuming the premise in the question, since we already exist and we cannot know exactly what odds exist against our existence (although I grant you it is possible they are quite slim).
Your argument is that ex post facto rare events are by definition miraculous.
All ex post facto analysis of any multi-variate event will reveal the actuality as a statistical anomaly, and when there is an n of 1, you simply cannot discuss what the statistics are.
If you hold to the fine tuning argument, you must think that all casinos are miracle factories.
@ Evan: With the card example any sequence of cards would be a valid outcome. With the universe only a universe where we could exist is valid. What constituted as a valid universe which could sustain life was not decided after the big bang.
Anything could be dismissed by saying 'oh, well we wouldn't be asking the question if it hadn't turned out that way'
James I don't know if you really don't understand what I am saying or if you're being deliberately obtuse.
The fact is we exist. There is no dispute about that.
Since we exist, by definition the universe MUST support our existence.
Beyond that we have NO other universes to compare to our own, only speculation regarding the possibility of the existence of other universes.
We have no clear idea why physical constants are the way they are because we have NO other universes to compare to.
The fine tuning argument assumes there are an infinite number of possible universes.
Let as assume this as a given, even though I believe it is debatable.
But you will agree with me that even with an infinite number of possible universes, the ONLY universe where a debate about the fine tuning argument can take place is one in which there are ALREADY intelligent beings.
Thus, the cards have ALREADY been dealt, since we ALREADY exist.
The probability a priori of such a universe is completely unknowable (since we do not have any other universes to compare it to), and its probability a posteriori is 100%, since it already exists.
There simply is nothing to the fine-tuning argument, unless you believe casinos are miracle factories.
James I don't know if you really don't understand what I am saying or if you're being deliberately obtuse.
I'm thinking the same about you.
Beyond that we have NO other universes to compare to our own
We can create all kinds of hypothetical universes.
Imagine you were stood against a wall and a thousand of the world's best marksmen pointed guns at you. The command 'fire' is yelled and they all shoot. All of them miss. would you say: "well they would have missed otherwise I wouldn't be here to ask the question." Would you say "obviously no possible universe where I get shot exists"? Would you not wonder why they all missed?
You could explain any event as a random accident with the way you're thinking.
The probability a priori of such a universe is completely unknowable (since we do not have any other universes to compare it to), and its probability a posteriori is 100%, since it already exists.
The question is why do we exist. We often ask why something happened after it happened.
Imagine you were stood against a wall and a thousand of the world's best marksmen pointed guns at you. The command 'fire' is yelled and they all shoot. All of them miss. would you say: "well they would have missed otherwise I wouldn't be here to ask the question." Would you say "obviously no possible universe where I get shot exists"? Would you not wonder why they all missed?
Imagine 10,000 firing squads.
There is a 99.99% probability that a person being shot at by a firing squad will be killed by it.
Imagine all 10,000 firing squads fire at once. One of the 10,000 individuals in front of the firing squads survives, exactly as probability would dictate.
Which one of the original 10,000 who were in front of a firing squad will wonder about why she survived?
Is that a hard question for you to answer?
If it is, than the fine tuning argument may make sense to you.
If it is an easy question for you to answer, than the fine tuning argument should be just as easily solved.
Imagine 10,000 firing squads.
Then you're assuming that billions of other universes exist, i.e the multi verse theory. The problem is that the only evidence for other universes is the fine-tuning of our universe whereas for God there is the fine-tuning of the universe as well as a whole bunch of other arguments (everything from the argument from morality, our desire to believe in God and the historicity of Jesus) So what you are suggesting is that we throw out the idea God made the universe in favour of favour of a theory backed up by less evidence.
It also doesn't give the best all-round explanation as it doesn't even answer why all these universes are popping out of nowhere in the first place!
Then you're assuming that billions of other universes exist, i.e the multi verse theory.
No I'm not assuming that at all. My assumption is simple. We don't know how universes are formed with anything remotely like enough knowledge to say word one about their relative probabilities. The degrees of freedom of the possible variables are so vast that discussing them is ridiculous and scholastic.
This is why Christians love to discuss this. It allows all kinds of odd conclusions.
Regardless of how probable you believe universes to be, regardless of how improbable you believe them to be, we exist. Therefore whether universes begin with statistical likelihood of producing humans or whether they begin with an extremely high amount of improbability for the development of human life, OUR universe has human life in it.
Until you can compare OUR universe to another universe, you are flapping your gums or waving your fingers depending on whether you are talking or typing.
The more complex something is the less likely it is to come about by chance. You would happily accept this in most situations.
Was the mona lisa created or did someone knock over all their paint and by pure chance the paint hit the canvas to form the masterpiece? Well, we have the mono lisa now so we already know that we ended up with it and if it didn't exist I couldn't talk about it. I was not there and don't know enough about art to possible go for the former theroy over the latter. Or, can I deduce that because the painting is complex it was created?
Was the mona lisa created or did someone knock over all their paint and by pure chance the paint hit the canvas to form the masterpiece? Well, we have the mono lisa now so we already know that we ended up with it and if it didn't exist I couldn't talk about it. I was not there and don't know enough about art to possible go for the former theroy over the latter. Or, can I deduce that because the painting is complex it was created?
What a ridiculous argument.
First you know from experience that canvas is man-made and does not occur naturally.
You know that paintings that show human forms are man-made. You can observe their creation and watch how it is done. You have seen at a minimum thousands of paintings in your life.
Thus, when you see one you know how it was made.
You know that you could buy canvas, paint and brushes and replicate the process, and you know exactly what steps it would take to do it. The quality of your painting would likely not be as good. But the steps you took would be parallel.
Your argument really is weak if this is the best you can do.
Please tell me how many universes you've seen made.
Please tell me how many universes you've designed.
Please tell me how you would go about making a universe.
I think Evan is doing a lot of special pleading. It simply begs the question as to why we would be so lucky for pure chance to give us a universe that could sustain life. What he is doing is avoiding answering the question by saying that we wouldn't have a question to ask if life didn't exist.
I think we're starting to go around in circles. It doesn't matter if it is a painting or anything else - you don't go around assuming things with high order happened by chance. God could write 'I exist' in big letters across the sky and you could say that it came about by chance as we wouldn't be asking why it's there otherwise and as I can't write letters in the sky how could I know. You can duck explaining anything by resorting to 'it wouldn't need explaining if it didn't happen/exist etc'
If we don't know how the universe came into existence then how can you be an atheist - you can't possibly do anything to know if random chance is better than God.
This argument may be lost on some, but let's see what happens.
The universe is more like a Jackson Pollock than the Mona Lisa.
The universe is more like a Jackson Pollock than the Mona Lisa.
No. If you look at Jackson Pollock's painting they are a mess with no noticeable order. That is not true for the universe which is what the fine tuning argument achieves.
Evan, you said:
James I don't know if you really don't understand what I am saying or if you're being deliberately obtuse. The fact is we exist. There is no dispute about that.
Since we exist, by definition the universe MUST support our existence.
KH> Actually, it seems James understands exactly what you're talking about. You are arguing the Anthropic Principle: if the universe were not compatible with our existence we would not be here to observe it. James pointed that out.
But it does not follow that because we exist we shouldn't be surprised at the remarkable fine-tuning that allows for intelligent life. John Leslie's Firing Squad illustration, which James pointed out, shows this.
Your response was multiple universes, of which there is no evidence. Further, Collins points out the "mutliple universe generator" would require fine-tuning as well.
Kevin H
Your response was multiple universes, of which there is no evidence. Further, Collins points out the "mutliple universe generator" would require fine-tuning as well.
No.
My argument is NOT multiple universes. My argument is that we have an n of 1 universes from which to draw conclusions.
Any n of 1 cannot by definition be used to draw statistical inferences.
This is not a difficult concept.
I want you to think of the reverse of this argument and you see how you like it.
Assume there are 6 billion people on earth give or take a few billion.
Assume there is an awful disease that occurs with a statistical probability of 1 in 6 billion in humans, but has NEVER been seen before. We can suggest that this disease would cause chronic, painful festering sores, bad breath, chronic severe untreatable abdominal pain and paradoxically it would extend lifespan by a factor of 2, such that the suffering of the patient would be doubled.
The chances of any one person getting it would be astronomically low.
Doctors would be unable to diagnose the disease. They would be shocked by its severity and chronicity and they would be extremely unlikely to see another case until another 6 billion people had lived, even then it would be quite likely it could wait until another 12 billion people had lived. The doctors for this patient would tell her they had no idea how probable the disease was. (In point of fact such a disease, if it existed would be exquisitely hard for science to characterize.)
Would the person who got the disease be justified in thinking it was her fault that she got it? Since she was the only person on earth ever to have this set of symptoms, would she be accurate in deciding that it was a divine act?
Would doctors be right in offering her a probability of someone else catching a disease they had seen only one case of?
If you think she is being punished by God, you have every right to use the fine-tuning argument.
If you think her doctors would be right to assume lots of knowledge about her condition, tell her that it was unbelievably rare and therefore was evidence of divine judgment, you knock yourself out with your fine-tuning.
But the proper, humble approach is to admit we simply don't know. All we know is that she exists and she has the disease.
There's not a hint of "special pleading" in that example.
Any n of 1 cannot by definition be used to draw statistical inferences.
we're not making statistical inferences, we're using probability. You can use probability on completely theoretical examples with an n of 0.
Assume there is an awful disease that occurs with a statistical probability of 1 in 6 billion in humans, but has NEVER been seen before.
A doctor/scientist can look at that one patient and make inferences about the nature of the illness. Once they've worked out what caused the illness they can make a good prediction as to how likely it is to happen again. In the same way a cosmologist can work out that gravity has to be exactly right in order for the universe to not implode.
curious how you don't turn the same probablistic logic on the concept of your God.
Let's see a . . .
A knowledge able to understand how to design everything from a universe to a atom, from a bacteria to a human. Something that knows not only everything that is known but knows everything that might have been. Everytime the Universe gets more complicated, God would have to be correspondingly more intelligent or in probablistic terms less likely.
A power able to animate non-life. Able to make chemicals, matter, and 'meat', think, walk, talk, and grow. As complexity of life grows, this power of God's also becomes less likely.
A mind able to conceive a perfect morality, without life experience.
A God able to take a human form, but choses not to in every generation.
A God who answers prayer and grants healings, except when we try to do double blind confirmable study.
A God who supposedly knows the future but communicates so poorly that most every generation of Christians has assumed it was the last.
A God who is suppose to embody perfect justice, but the final measure of His justice is whether at the end of life you are willing to serve Him forever and that is irrespective of how you lived your life.
A God whose image we are suppose to have been made in, but He is perfect, immaterial, and invisible.
A God who calls some through an overwhelming internal feelings of a 'Spirit', but choses not to give it to others because they 'denied' Him.
A God who has not interfered when His word is corrupted or His church or its members behave poorly.
A God who walked out of the grave but somehow managed to not be mentioned anywhere contemporaneously except in documents that trailed the incident by 30 to 60 years.
Central planning didn't work for the Soviet Union, but somehow it works when you move to the larger task of ordering a universe.
Oh, and by the way, I am not an expert in the fine tuning of the universe, but seems it has convinced a very small minority (count on one hand) who specialize in such science. I agree with Evan assigning such odds is an exercise in guessing and assuming all positions on the 'knobs' the universe is tuned on are equally possible - is irresponsible.
Love how you guys have moved from God knitted us together in womb to at the beginning of the universe, God staged the possiblility of life. He justs keeps getting pushed back farther and farther in the process.
"Oh, and by the way, I am not an expert in the fine tuning of the universe, but seems it has convinced a very small minority (count on one hand) who specialize in such science."
It has only convinced a very small minority in my discipline (philosophy) as well. That includes Christian philosophers, too, btw.
A doctor/scientist can look at that one patient and make inferences about the nature of the illness. Once they've worked out what caused the illness they can make a good prediction as to how likely it is to happen again. In the same way a cosmologist can work out that gravity has to be exactly right in order for the universe to not implode.
I hope you are not either a doctor or a scientist.
Spontaneous OrderEverytime the Universe gets more complicated, God would have to be correspondingly more intelligent or in probablistic terms less likely.
You haven't really given God much of a chance. If he made the universe incredibly simple you would claim that also proved God didn't exist. God, by definition, is very intelligent.
What makes an uncreated being less likely if it is intelligent?
Escapologist:It has only convinced a very small minority in my discipline (philosophy) as well. That includes Christian philosophers, too, btw.
What do you mean by that? Most atheist philosophers and scientists don't see it as proof for God? Well , by definition, atheists won't. Who are these numerous Christian philosophers who reject the argument?
The fact that the universe is finely tuned is accepted by most scientists, even by people such as Stephen Hawkins. This doesn't mean that they accept God exists, but they accept that the universe is finely tuned and thus have to go about finding naturalistic ways of explaining this.
Hi James,
Well, Peter Van Inwagen and John Hawthorne, to give a couple examples of "superstars" who are also Christian theists (Hawthorne has a nice critique of it in a recent essay, currently posted on his faculty webpage at Oxford. Van Inwagen gives a decisive refutation of it in his textbook, Metaphysics, with Westview Press). But as for philosophers who don't accept it, the list of philosophers would fill this comment thread.
A ticky-tacky point: you meant to say 'Steven Hawking', right?
The actual fine tuning is not disputed by either. It is whether it can naturalistically be explained that is the issue.
Peter Van Inwagen supports the multiverse theory:
John Leslie (1989) argues vigorously that the fact that our universe meets the extremely
improbable yet necessary conditions for the evolution of life, supports the thesis that
there exist very many universes. The view has found favor with a number of
philosophers such as Derek Parfit (1998), J. J. C. Smart (1989) and Peter van Inwagen
(1993).(here)
John Hawthorne argues:
The strategy I have in mind relies on an empirical springboard which I shall not
question. This strategy empirical claim is that for an important range of fundamental
physical constants c (Planck’s constant, for example), something like the following is
true:
Only an extremely restricted range of values for c permit the existence of living
conscious beings.
(If one wants a bucket analogy, imagine that there are billions of buckets, one of
which is full of waking pills, the rest a mixture of pills, half of which lead to waking, half
to permanent unconsciousness.(here)
I have already said in previous posts that the multiverse theory explains the fine tuning . I have also pointed out that such ideas require more faith than Christianity as they require belief, without evidence, in numerous other universes etc. The fine tuning argument may not give proof god exists, but does show that atheists make faith based statements about the universe.
James said "God, by definition, is very intelligent.
What makes an uncreated being less likely if it is intelligent?"
But you are applying an unequal standard. Everytime the naturual world gets more complicated, you cry how much less likely that natural world is and therefore more assuredly a creator. But you want to give a free pass to the intelligence of God, having once defined him as omniscient. But there is omniscient and there is OMNISCIENT. Surely you recognize that our body of knowledge has grown exponentially since Aquainas?
You are asserting that perfect and full knowledge has existed eternally with the equivalent of ZERO life or lab experience. If we are going to go into the exercise of assigning odds to things existing, what odds should we assign such an intelligence? And this is only one attribute assigned to God.
And James you are being disingenuous when you say by definition atheist philosophers wouldn't agree when our point is that in a highly complex field you have few specialists convinced of your argument. I think it is LOL funny that some Christians assert that Dawkins should stick to his own field, while William Craig is allowed to comment authoritatively on psychology, cosmology, biology, philosophy & ethics, history, Biblical languages, archaelogy, sociology, religion, etc. Another example of a double standard.
Finally not having answers is not equal to having faith. I understand science, not 'believe on' it.
spontaneous order said it:
Everytime the naturual world gets more complicated, you cry how much less likely that natural world is and therefore more assuredly a creator. But you want to give a free pass to the intelligence of God...
This is indeed the crux of the double standard. Believers point out all kinds of order in the world, and wherever science has no answer yet (or even when they do have enough answers, as in neodarwinism), they say that a God must, logically, be responsible for the order.
But when atheists ask where God's order came from, however, they get the runaround in one form or another: God is the Uncaused Cause, or God is an Uncreated Being, or He exists outside of time and space, or some such. God is whisked to safety from questioning about His provenance behind a wall of impressive-sounding formulations. What they all boil down to, though, is an appeal to magic, and they all mean the same thing: logic stops here, access denied.
As has been pointed out, we simply do not know enough to assign probabilities to the particular set of parameters in our universe, or to the possibility of multiverses. But how one can say that it takes more faith to entertain the notion of multiverses than of God is beyond me. We know of one universe- ours- and more of them doesn't seem a big stretch of the imagination. What does seem an awful stretch of the imagination is a Being who must be more complex than our universe, but simply came from nowhere, or was always here.
In our experience, very complex things only come from from other complex things, such as living things reproducing or people designing; or they have to evolve slowly, as life did, or as computer programs can, given the right conditions. God does not fit in here, if he was not created and did not evolve. For this reason alone I would say that multiverses are vastly simpler, and thus far more likely, than an uncreated, unevolved, omniscient, omnipotent being.
In any case, I prefer to say "I don't know how the Universe came to be" rather than "God created the Universe- and God's origin is a Magical Mystery". The "Magical Mystery" is just "I don't know" in a fancy tux, and God is the unimaginably complex offspring of this fancy "I don't know". I prefer that my "I don't know's" don't generate such mindbogglingly improbable concoctions.
I'm not sure I see the point you're making. *Of course* they grant the fine-tuning. The point is that neither these famous Christian philosophers don't think fine-tuning makes theism more probable than not. That's sort of the whole point I was making.
But no, it really doesn't take any faith for these Christian philosophers who reject the argument, nor does it take non-Christian philosophers to do so. The problem is that the multiverse hypothesis predicts the same data equally well, and so the argument is a wash.
The point about the other universes being unobservable is of no help. Neither is the invisible god of theism. But observability of the cause is off track anyway, since the whole point of making a Bayesian or an abductive inference is to extend knowledge or reasonable belief beyond what can strictly be observed.
Your appeal to other arguments from natural theology would help if those arguments were any good, but they aren't. And in addition, you dismiss arguments against theism on the other side, as if non-theists had no additional evidence in support of their position.
Finally, the point about an appeal to a need for a cause of the mechanism for creating multiple universe misfires, as the non-theist can just appeal to it as a brute fact (at least provisionally). Swinburne makes just this point, from the side of the theist: in his famous defense of the design argument, he argues that a theoretical entity or process can legitimately explain a range a data, even if that entity/process is itself left unexplained. He needs this point to stop the "who designed the designer?" objection. If the theist can legitimately say that, just this once, a complex, functional entity can exist without a prior intelligent cause of its complex-functionality, then so can the non-theist.
Again, to say that such a "superspace" of multiverses is purely speculative, without direct observational support: of course, the same thing goes for the theistic hypothesis; they're on a par in this respect. In science, as in detective work, you often have to resort to hypotheses incapable of direct experimental confirmation or disconfirmation. You just have to make abductive inferences to the best explanation. Each theory accrues support in terms of embodying theoretical virtues, such as simplicity, explanatory scope and power, etc. Now consider the two hypotheses of theism and M-Theory. Both explain the data of the origin of our universe. Which one is the better explanation? One could argue that theism is simpler/more parsimonious, as it posits just one extra entity, while M-Theory posits many. But as David Lewis has taught us, there are at least two kinds of simplicity/parsimony: quantitative (postulates fewer entities) and and qualitative (postulates fewer *kinds* of entities), and it's not clear at all which type of parsimony is more important. And while theism may be more *quantitatively* parsimonious, M-Theory is more *qualitatively) parsimonious. Indeed, it's breath-takingly parsimonious, ultimately reducing all physical reality to vibrating filaments of energy.)
And so we're on to the 'who made God?' chestnut. It's simple: nobody! God is an uncreated being. Think of it like this:
1)Time and space were created in the big bang.
2)Therefore whatever caused the big bang must exist outside of time and space
3)A created entity requires a beginning and a beginning requires time
4)Therefore God (or whatever caused the big bang) was not created
Now I want to ask what makes something complex improbable? Is it existing? No - on my desk, amongst other stuff, is a computer monitor and a pencil. The first is more complex than the second but does it therefore mean that one is less likely to still be on my desk by the time I have written this post? Obviously not and so once you have something complex we don't need to explain why it continues to exist. What makes something complex improbable is in explaining how it was created (i.e how it got there). But God is uncreated and so is no less likely than an uncreated random universe creator.
Moving on, what if we conclude that we don't know how the universe came into being. In doing so we must accept that God existing is just as likely as God not existing as the evidence for both positions is the same and both are making affirmative statements about the nature of the universe. This means that when I look at other evidence (e.g the historicity of Jesus) I must do so with the assumption that God could exist.
I'm not raising the "who created the creator" objection. That is, I'm not asking for the efficient cause of the *existence* of the creator. Rather, I'm asking for the efficient cause of the *complex functionality* of the designer. Design arguments appeal to complexity, functionality, specified complexity, or what have you, as standing in need of explanation. The problem is that God has these features as well, and so the logic of the argument requires God to have a designer. But if the theist allows for at least one case of brute, unexplainable complex functionality, then the non-theist can do the same with, say, the multiverse.
This is a different problem than the "who created the creator?" problem, since there's an asymmetry in principle between the explanans and the explanandum in cosmological arguments that doesn't apply to design arguments. For cosmological arguments can qualify their main premise in a principled way so as to allow for a legitimate exception for God. So, for example, take Craig's kalam cosmological argument. He doesn't argue that *everything* needs a cause; rather, he argues that everything *that begins to exist* needs a cause. And he gives principled reasons for this qualification by arguing that there is an intrinsic limit to time or events, such that there must be a first event. And if he's right, then it makes sense to say that the explanans (in this case, a god) need not have a cause, even if the explanandum (in this case, the universe) does. By contrast, the design argument has no such asymmetry to appeal to: it just says that all complex and functional things require a designer. But if so, no principled exception can be appealed to on behalf of the Designer, in which case the argument can be run against the Designer himself.
Now you try appeal to something beyond the design argument to generate such an asymmetry -- viz., the Big Bang singularity -- so that you can say that the Designer's brute complex functionality needs no designer since, unlike the universe, there are no possible temporal causal antecedents to appeal to as explainers of God's complex functionality. That's a legitimate move in principle. However, there are serious, non-trivial rivals to the "absolute singularity" construal of the Big Bang, e.g., M-Theory. So, for example, M-Theory entails that our universe is just one membrane in 10-dimensional spacetime, within which there may well be many, many other membrane universes. On this theory, the 10-dimensional spacetime didn't begin with the Big Bang; it may well be eternal for all we know. So unless or until we can rule out M-theory, and other rivals to the absolute singularity model that involve physical antecedents to the Big Bang, this sort of appeal can't justify the asymmetry you want for the Designer hypothesis.
exapologistRather, I'm asking for the efficient cause of the *complex functionality* of the designer.
If God is uncreated then he has no cause. To ask what the cause of complexity is for the uncaused being is illogical.
James -- the fine tuning argument rests on the proposition that statistical improbabilities are evidence of supernatural causes.
Do you hold to this belief generally? Or do you hold it only this one case?
Yes, but the point I'm addressing is whether the design argument, without appeal to other arguments, makes theism more probable than not. And I'm arguing that, no, it does not. I suppose you could just add to the Designer hypothesis that he's uncreated, but then we could do the same thing to address a similar worry for the non-theist's hypotheses by adding that, say, the multiverse is uncaused.
Now you could try to break the stalemate and give arguments for the Designer being uncaused by appeal to considerations extraneous to the design argument -- say, by appealing to the ontological argument or the cosmological argument. But that's to concede my point that the design argument can't, at least all by itself, render theism more probable than not.
I'd be happy to discuss these arguments with you at some point down the road, but a stack of papers is calling for me to grade them at the moment, and in any case such a discussion would go too far afield from the topic of this thread. In the meantime, you could see what I have to say about these other arguments at exapologist.blogspot.com, supposing that would interest you.
Regards,
EA
I'm not claiming that the fine tuning argument is the be all and end all, I didn't even bring the subject up originally. All I'm saying is that it strengthens the theist's position but must be weighed up alongside all the other arguments both sides have.
Generally the less probable something is the less likely it is to happen by chance and thus the more credible the other explanations become. Of course anything, however remarkable, could be a fluke or a coincidence.
Of course anything, however remarkable, could be a fluke or a coincidence.
Wonderful. I think this invalidates any force the fine-tuning argument has if you believe this.
Think of it like this, if we played a game of bridge and I dealt myself the perfect hand would this mean I was cheating? Well as the cards were randomly shuffled then it is not conclusive proof as I could get the perfect hand by chance. If we had another game and I dealt myself another perfect hand would this be proof I was cheating, again no. However many times I deal myself a perfect hand I could end up with it by chance. Now factor in the multiverse factor. If there are an infinite number of universes someone in one of those universes is going to get a perfect hand of bridge 100 times in a row by chance alone. Why couldn't it be me? This may be all valid but would your suspicions that I was cheating be justified?
So ... we've had one hand dealt that we know of, since there's only one universe. We have no idea the a priori probability that universes come out a given way, and we don't even know what the determinate variables are, yet you equate that to multiple repetitions of an identical, extremely improbable event?
Really?
Suppose I'd never played bridge before - then I would only have one hand that I've ever dealt with.
James -- CORRECT!
Which means you know nothing about the relative probability of a given outcome and therefore can say nothing about it.
Even if we cannot come up with an exact number we can recreate numerous conditions which do not permit life within a lab. We can use simulations (either on paper or computer) to show what would happen if the force of gravity were different etc
Do you seriously look at the world around you and happily assume that the way it is is simply inevitable?
Let's see if this C+ student of science can put this analogy back on track.
The comparison to a deck of cards seems a rather inept comparison. First the cards are rather simple and even based on our first shuffle a clever person could understand how randomness creates a myriad of possible outcomes.
This is a universe you guys are talking about here. Let's suppose that 3 universes in a billion gazillion (or any arbritrarily large sounding number) universes should be a be able to support life. We then move to the speculation of whether there are other universes. Which is as from a layman's (science this time not religion) perspective is almost a completely, currently unresolvable question. Which is problem for scientist and theist alike.
Let's suppose though that we found out (complete WAG) that our universe was contained in a blackhole and we are aware of blackholes that lead out of our own universe. At that point it becomes easy to to speculate there are an uncountable number of universes. So on the three planets in our billion gazillion universes, someone is saying, 'Wow, how certain it is that there must be a God, this universe is fine tuned for our existence'.
Finally, these calculations seem to take poorly into account three requirements of Bayesian probabilities. First, each of the measures of the probability must be truly independent of all of the other outcomes measured. Victor Stenger disagrees that this requirement is met. Second, you must include all relevant categories not just the ones that work to your 'winning' calculation. Finally in this case you would have to be able to demonstrate, that you have allowed for all reasonable winning possiblities. Victor Stenger disagrees here as well pointing out that if you adjusted the scale many of the items could still remain in harmony.
on our first shuffle a clever person could understand how randomness creates a myriad of possible outcomes.
Isn't the atheist's position that the universe came out of randomness?
We then move to the speculation of whether there are other universes.
I've already addressed the multi verse theory numerous times. a)there is not evidence other than that which can be used for God. b) any remarkable event (e.g getting a perfect hand in bridge 100 times) could be dismissed on the ground that it must happen in one of these universes. Please address what I have already said rather than repeating the idea there are other universes.
Which is as from a layman's (science this time not religion) perspective is almost a completely, currently unresolvable question.
Why is the multi universe theory science and God not if both explain the data equally well? You seem to confusing science with naturalism and atheism.
Let's suppose
We can bring all kinds of imaginary evidence, that we wish we had, if we like. The point is that you either have to believe in God or multiple universes. As an atheist you clearly accept the idea of multiple universes as being considerably more likely but why? It isn't evidence as we have other lines of evidence for God and none, as yet, for other universes.
We can bring all kinds of imaginary evidence, that we wish we had, if we like. The point is that you either have to believe in God or multiple universes.
This is the falsest dichotomy I have ever seen in my life.
The fact is that we have NO experimental evidence that shows the existence of other universes. We have calculations based on elaborate theories, but NO experimental data. We have NO experimental data that shows that the universe was not created by a pimple being burst on the head of Thor either.
This does not mean that you either believe in multiple universes or you believe that Thor's zit burst.
There are MYRIAD potential resolutions of the problem of the origin of the universe and we have nothing evidential to go on that allows us to pick one over the other except the things we see extant in the current universe. Any discussion of the origin of the universe is by definition speculative and the very best answer that explains all the data regarding the origin of the universe is this:
We don't know how the universe originated yet.
That's really easy for me to say. It doesn't cause any great harm. I have no agenda to push regarding the origin of the universe. The universe as it exists on the other hand gives positive evidence AGAINST a theist God who interacts with human beings and writes, inspires or dictates books.
It is possible there are multiple universes (although there may be some linguistic recalibration that needs to be done if you consider the base definition of universe).
It is possible there is a deist God.
It is possible there is a pimple that burst on the head of Thor.
It is possible that Shiva is bored but one day will destroy the whole thing and make it go back into the universal Brahma.
But to say that there are only two possibilities is to display unconscionable arrogance.
You could just suspend judgement and be agnostic about the origin of the universe, thus neither believing nor disbelieving any account. For my money, that seems to be the most reasonable thing to do here, pending evidence that would push one hypothesis over any other.
I think this has reached an end as people seem to just keep repeating themselves.
Finally, Exapologust said:You could just suspend judgement and be agnostic about the origin of the universe, thus neither believing nor disbelieving any account. For my money, that seems to be the most reasonable thing to do here, pending evidence that would push one hypothesis over any other.
Then the fine tuning argument has done a lot - even if it isn't as much as some Christians claim. It gets us in a position where atheists have just as much responsibility to prove their position as theists do. It means the question 'how do you know God doesn't exist?' is just as valid as the question 'How do you know God exists.'
And, going back to the original point of this discussion, the fact God doesn't fulfil your expectations is not the answer to 'how do you know God doesn't exist' as we'd expect God to not fulfil all of our expectations!
I didn't follow your remarks at the end of your last comment, but yes, this is pretty much Hume's conclusion: the design argument at it's strongest can't take the probability beyond counterbalanced, in which case suspension of judgement is the only reasonable thing to do, given the data: if all we've got is the design argument, then it's not reasonable to be a theist and it's not reasonable to be an atheist.
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