Definition of God: First cause, prime mover, objective source of human purpose (final cause) and resulting morality, source of free will; omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent inasmuch as principles of logic allow. I am not talking in particular about any specifically defined religious interpretation of god, such as the christian or islamic god.
Definition: Intellectual dishonesty occurs when (1)one deliberately mischaracterizes their position or view in order to avoid having to logically defend their actual views; and/or (2) when someone is arguing, or making statements against a position while remaining willfully ignorant about that position, and/or (3) when someone categorically and/or pejoratively dismisses all existent and/or potential evidence in favor of a conclusion they claim to be neutral about, whether they are familiar with that evidence or not.
The argument against weak atheism:
Weak, or negative atheism is the lack of any belief that a god exists, and the lack of belief that god probably exists, and is not the positive belief that gods do not exist.
The following is a brief summary of the evidence for a general finding that a god of some kind exists, even if variantly interpreted or culturally contextualized (one can generally look up these arguments and evidences using google or bing):
1) Anecdotal evidence for the apparently intelligently ordered anomalous, miraculous (defying expected natural processes and probabilities) events attributed to god, such as signs or answers to prayers to god, or the ability to manifest or positively affirm such events through free will intention;
2) Testimonial evidence (first-hand accounts) of experience of such phenomena
3) The various Cosmological Arguments for the existence of god
4) The Strong Anthropic (or Fine Tuning) argument
5) The empirical, scientific evidence assembled in the strong anthropic argument in #4;
6) The Moral Arguments for the existence of god.
7) Empirical and testimonial evidence of phenomena closely correlated to the existence of a god of some sort, such as the survival of consciousness after death, and the existence of an afterlife realm, and the apparent agreement of afterlife entities that a god and human purpose exist; the evidence for interactions with correlated entities such as angels and demons (which seem to act to influence our free will towards or away from our human purpose), etc.
While the various arguments listed (all of which, to some degree, begin with empirical evidence) have been subject to counter-arguments and rebuttals of varying strengths and weaknesses, one must not lose sight that while there is much evidence (as listed above) in favor of the existence of god; there is zero evidence (to my knowledge) or rational argument (to my knowledge) that no such god (as defined above) exists.
[Note: One may argue that the Christian god doesn’t exist because of certain contradictions contained in the expressed nature and actions of that entity (or of the Islamic god); and there are such arguments – but this thread is not about such gods, so please adhere to the stated premise.]
The rebuttals to these argument are simply attempting to show weaknesses or alternatives to the arguments themselves so that such arguments cannot be taken as convincing (that god exists); such counter-arguments do not make the case that god (as described above) in fact does not exist.
Also, the testimony of religious adherents of various specific gods can be counted as evidence of the god premised in this argument in the manner that various various cultures can vary widely in their description of certain phenomena or experiences, and come up with widely variant “explanations”; what is interesting as evidence here, though, is the widespread crediting of similar kinds of phenomena and experience to a “god” of some sort (which might be the case of blind or ignorant people touching different parts of an elephant and thus describing “what the elephant is” in various ways). Such testimonial evidence can be counted in favor of the premise here, but cannot be held against it where it varies, because it is not testimony that such a god doesn’t exist.
If a “weak atheist” claims to “lack of belief” because there is “no” evidence for god, they are necessarily being intellectually dishonest, because they certainly aren’t privy to all potential or available evidence. They cannot claim to not know of the evidence for god after having perused the above evidence.
If the “weak atheist” is not aware of any compelling evidence, then any categorical claim they make about the available evidence they are not privy to – that it is not credible or convincing – is again intellectually dishonest because they are making a categorical claim about something they have no knowledge of.
If we have a weak atheist who is aware of the existence of the above evidence and agrees that there might be more evidence they are not privy to; and who does not categorically assert problems with the evidence they have not yet seen; and who does not categorically dismiss the available evidence as “non-evidence” (such as: hypocritically accepting testimonial evidence as evidence when it supports what they already believe, but dismissing it when it supports the existence of god) but rather states that the available evidence they have seen is not compelling towards a conclusion that god exists; then one must ask the following:
In the face of such huge amounts of evidence – thousands of years of testimony and anecdotal stories; many sound arguments based on empirical evidence and apparently necessary logical premises and inferences; and the complete lack of any attempt to make a sound argument that god (as described above) in fact does not exist – one must ask: how can any intellectually honest person come to any conclusion other than that god probably exists, even if god is poorly and diversely defined, and even if the experience of god is open to interpretation and misunderstanding?
As an analogy: even if one has never personally experienced “love”; in the face of thousands of years of testimony and anecdotal stories that love exists, and empirical evidence supporting that certain physical states correspond to assertions of experiences of love, would it be intellectually honest to “lack belief” that love exists, or would it be intellectually honest to hold the view that even though one doesn’t experience love (or using the same argument, color, joy, dreams, etc.), that love probably exists – even if people are widely disparate in their explanation, description, or presentation of what love is?
That I am aware of, there is zero evidence, no argument, and no anecdotal or testimonial evidence that god does not exist (because lack of experience of a thing isn’t evidence the thing doesn’t exist), and there is a vast array of logical, anecdotal, testimonial and empirical evidence that god does exist.
Even if one doesn’t find that evidence compelling for for a final conclusion that god exists, it is at least, if one is intellectually honest, compelling to the point that when one weighs the balance of the evidence for and against, that one must admit that it is more probable that god exists that that god does not exist, which cannot be said to be an atheistic point of view at all.
The argument against strong atheism:
Strong atheism is defined as the assertion that no god or gods exist whatsoever.
First, it is obvious that strong atheism cannot be logically supported, simply because it is impossible to prove (not in the absolute sense, but in the “sufficient evidence” sense). There may be evidence that certain gods, or kinds of gods, do not exist; but there is certainly no evidence or argument (that I’m aware of, anyway) that no significant, meaningful god or gods whatsoever exist.
Instead, strong atheists usually attempt to shift the burden onto theist by essentially asking the theists to prove the atheist position wrong. However, that is not the theists’ burden.
Strong atheism is a sweeping, categorical, negative assertion that something does not exist at all, anywhere. However unlikely one fineds it, it might be true that a god of some sort exists, so the strong atheist position would be excluding a potentially true explanation from consideration unnecessarily.
What is the useful point of a metaphysical position that excludes a potentially true explanation from consideration? What does strong atheism bring to the table of debate other than the potential for intractable error and denial of potential truth for the sake of a sweeping, unsupportable, universally negative assertion?
Conclusion: atheism of any sort is an untenable position for any intellectually honest, rational, and informed person. The belief that god does not exist, or that it isn’t more likely that god exists than not, can only be a valid position based on ignorance of the available evidence and argument for god, or a pseudoskeptical, a priori dismissal of all of the evidence for god based on ideological bias.
(Reposted here from a post I previously made under another name, in another forum, with a few minor edits and additions.)
William, how can you conclude there is an entity that is independent of the process that generates delusions when the concept of such an entity is the product of the process that generates delusions. In other words, there’s no way for you to independently know that your understanding of some independent agency isn’t a product of delusion. Thus, as Lizzie and others note, you’re in the same boat as any other materialist.
On an individual level, yep. On a group or system level however, delusion is reduced to a relatively low factor.
It’s a rather old divide, the question of whether you gain knowledge by thinking about it, or whether you gain knowledge by making hypotheses and testing them.
Perhaps you mean, you don’t see any, perhaps even when it is pointed out, repeatedly, just as IDists may not see the behavior/evidence you point out in their ranks. Which means one side or the other is common-definition deluded, since they both believe about the same negative thing about the other side.
The problem – once again – when it comes to a deluded observation and interpretation of evidence, one cannot point to any observation or evidence and expect it to clear up a delusion or prove the truth. That is the very problem I pose; what do materialists posit as a means of escaping a deluded observation and interpretation of evidence?
You have nothing, because in the end everything is the product of the same kind of interactions that generate “evidence delusion”. Non materialists at least have something premised that is independent of delusion-generating material interactions, which at least hypothetically could be utilized to discern delusion from non-delusion.
Materialists don’t even have a hypothetical means of doing so.
It’s not a conclusion, It’s a necessary premise. Otherwise, one has no hope, not even hypothetical, of intentionally preventing or escaping delusion.
I wonder if William’s “independent arbiter” is the same imaginary entity that speakes directly to the hearts of believers, and never ever tells them their opinion is wrong. THAT kind of independence must be nice to have access to.
Well, nothing except replication, consiliance, predictive value, willingness to modify when new evidence arises, publication, detailed explanations of methodology, clear operational definitions, peer review, and so on and on and on.
In other words, the problem of confirmation bias in finding reality is well recognized. The REAL distinction is that materialists recognize this as a problem and do everything possible to minimize it or neutralize it, knowing that absolute success is not possible.
The immaterialists, on the contrary, SEEK confirmation bias, wallow in it, philosphize endlessly about how wonderful it is, and work to perfect the art of assuming their foregone conclusions. And while they’re at it, they enjoy the health, lifespans, and lifestyles made possible by the silly materialists, who have accomplished what millennia of religious self-congratulation could not.
William J Murray,
Very nicely said and clearly shows the errors of the WJM’s of the world.
Elizabeth’s answer, it seems, is:
The way to see if how one observes, interprets and reaches conclusions about evidence is delusional or not is by observing, interpreting and reaching conclusions about the evidence.
This is what they mean when they say that materialism is ultimately self-referential. Without the assumption of an independent and reliable arbiter of truth, there simply isn’t any rational means to assert that anything one believes isn’t delusion.
William J Murray,
What you are trying to do is no different that trying to generate a stereo image from a mono source.
You have one brain trapped in your body and you think with “logic” you can generate a viewpoint that could only exist outside of your own single-brain viewpoint.
You are trying to use a steel ruler to measure a length of steel to see if a change in temperature can cause steel to change size.
And so the solution is so simple a simpleton can find it: just ASSUME UP an imaginary independent and reliable arbiter of truth. POOF, we know the Truth. Piece of cake. And amazingly, this imaginary independent and reliable arbiter always agrees with those who assume it. How wonderfully convenient. And there, folks, in black in white, is what “intellectual honesty” is all about.
The problem of evidence observation, interpretation and conclusion delusion cannot be resolved by appeal to more of the same.
Umm…not so much, unless your definition of “necessary” means the same thing as “arbitrary”. The rebuttal is quite easily demonstrated – those of us who do not accept your supposed “necessary premise” are seen functioning just fine. Ergo – not “necessary”.
Care to try again? Perhaps you’d like to use a different word?
So let’s try this again – how is it that your delusions can’t spawn delusions, William? How is your make believe “first cause” not subject to the delusion producing systems?
It isn’t “ultimately” self-referential, it’s iteratively multiply-referential. Call it bootstrapping if you like.
But never mind what it is: my point is what yours isn’t. You claim “an independent and reliable arbiter of truth” that we lack (or I think you do). But you have no such thing. You posit that there is such a theoretical entity, but as you have no independent access to it, it’s no better than having what we have.
It’s like defining a meter as a 40 millionth of the earth’s circumference, and then find yourself with no way of determining how long a 40 millionth of the earth’s circumference actually is!
That’s why theism is just as “ultimately self-referential” as any other system. God may be perfect and absolute, but as we have no way of knowing whether any one human being has the right God or the wrong one, or the right interpretation of the right God’s words or the wrong one, then biblical types end up saying “the bible is inerrant because the bible is inerrant” and people like you end up saying something that appears to make no more sense!
For an objective measure to be any use, we need to be able to use it, not just assume that it exists.
The problem of evidence observation, interpretation and conclusion delusion cannot be resolved by appeal to more of the same.
Of course not. the problem is resolved by the results of observation and interpretation. Even you base your acceptance of “Secret” stuff on results. Now all you have to do is look at many cases like your wife’s andmake the necessary adjustments to one’s interpretations and conclusions.
Well, yes, it can, or least be approximated with ever-increasing degrees of accuracy.
Think of it as analogous to the problem of quantifying instantaneous velocity, which so foxed Xeno. But it turned out to be perfectly solvable, given an iterative approach.
William,
You are making a mockery out of the worldview you supposedly believe in (that is if you aren’t just pulling our legs for the fun of it).
Here you state that materialism results in delusion, and you define delusion thus:
And yet in another post you consider that to be the definition of free will, which is the result of a theistic worldview:
Are you playing a game with us?
Nope, I meant exactly what I wrote. Feel free to provide one example where an “atheist/materialist Darwinist” was fired from a teaching position for presenting science as religion (Freshwater in reverse), developed a manifesto for sneaking science into church as religion (Wedge document in reverse), edited a text book by an incomplete search and replacement of a word that was found illegal under the Constitution to a potentially legal scientific word (one of the many Dover actions in reverse). Go ahead William – let’s see you provide one such bit of apple to apple comparison.
I’m sure you won’t even try to address these William because you know such would just prove my point.
WJM, regarding “Real World”
Please note that Christianity, like Science, has a belief an a real world that exists and does function as we experience it, even in the absence of ourselves. That is, the world was “alive” before Adam and Eve.
How is your theoretical conception of reality different?
Just a thought here William, but given that a whole bunch of theists who held a collective belief in a given phenomenon based upon an assumption of an independent and reliable arbiter of truth’s claims supposedly mistakenly hung said independent and reliable arbiter of truth on a piece of wood to die because he had the audacity to claim that he was said independent arbiter and note a few peoples’ errors of assumption and delusion, I really have to wonder how you can claim that having such an independent arbiter supposedly solves the problem of delusion for IDers. Just sayin…
Also, I can’t tell you how frustrated I am by your simple-minded approach to Philosophical reasoning and apparent disinterest to do any better.
rhampton & robin,
None of that has anything to do with, or to say about, the necessity of assuming that there is some sort of referential agency by which truth claims can be arbited. Such must be premised in order to avoid a necessary conclusion that materialism cannot assert to be anything other than any other delusion that humans have ever labored under.
Unless a materialist can refer to some independent judge (of evidence-delusion, which they cannot), then a materialist calling any other perspective delusional – or even erroneous – is meaningless.
There’s no reason to pay materialists any mind because they don’t even premise a means of avoiding material-generated evidence-delusion. At least other views premise a means of distinguishing truth from delusion.
I’m quite sure anything I say will, in your eyes, prove your point to you.
William J Murray,
Now you have simply got to be kidding!
If I “premise” a means of proving I am my own father, does that mean I have more credibility than a world of medical professionals who won’t even entertain the idea?
Having free will means being able to believe as one wishes, and also means one has an independent capacity to discern true statements from false. Because one has the capacity to discern true statements from false doesn’t mean one necessarily employs it, and doesn’t mean one is obliged to believe what they have found to be true. Free will also means being able to deny what is true.
Also, just having the capacity to discern true statements from false is useless unless there is a truth one has access to in order to judge competing statements. Since materialists deny formal truths exist, then once again materialism is shown to be nothing more than a system that not only cannot escape delusion, but embraces it as the only possible ontological state and epistemological method.
Uhh…seems your independent arbiter is off on that assumption too…
If you are going to claim to be your own father, you certainly must premise that there is a rational means of fathering yourself. Similarly, if one is going to claim that they can discern delusion from non-delusion, they must premise a rational means of doing so.
The only way to rationally premise that one can discern delusion from non-delusion is if there is an independent agency one has access to which can arbit such a distinction. To use the same agency that produces delusion as an arbiter is self-referential and irrational.
It’s not an assumption. It’s a conclusion based on observation of the evidence.
Well, not much I can say in response to an assertion of self-referential validation as a significant means of checking one’s beliefs.
You do realize that that this statement is easily rebutted simply by pointing to the existence of materialists, right? Or are you suggesting that our existence is just your illusion?
This is pretty simple logic,William – if (as you claim) we materialists can’t (or don’t (we “cannot” apparently, as you note above) refer to some independent judge, then apparently we can’t determine what is accurate or erroneous. If this were actually the case, we could not survive, because we could not determine whether we were eating, breathing, dressing, working, or doing any activity at all.
If we can’t compare behavior at all William and determine the difference between that which would be successful and that which leads to failure for a given goal (which is what your claim above is inherently), then there can be no awareness of sustenance. How do you propose materialists have gotten around this William?
“It’s not an assumption. It’s a conclusion based on observation of the evidence.”
Ah, well – at least William will accept that in some cases at least, evidence and observation can lead to a valid conclusion.
Or is he deluding himself?
Really not much to say in response to an assertion of checking one’s beliefs against one’s beliefs (and apparently pretending that calling one set of those beliefs *premises* makes them anything else but beliefs) as a significant means of validation.
To nail the independent agency to a cross pretty because one can’t truly know its he independent agency pretty much demolishes your claim of necessity or rationality here William.
William J Murray,
And you or StephenB or BarryA have never been able to do that.
Show me that you can be inside and outside of yourself at the same time.
You can’t build a stereo picture from a mono source by applying logic.
You have one brain.
If it’s wrong, there is no “backup” brain in your skull that can verify what your “primary” brain has concluded.
Some human “designed” systems have multiple processors individually working on the same problem just to verify if “conclusions” make sense.
We have one brain and therefore can’t do that.
Then your assessment tool needs calibrating as I’ve already accepted your argument on at least two occasions and changed my POV. I guess your independent arbiter didn’t remind you of those bits of evidence that directly contradict your claim. Oops…
By materialism not being true.
And immaterialists have gotten around their delusions with compartmentalization. It’s practical; it works.
Robin: “If we can’t compare behavior at all William and determine the difference between that which would be successful and that which leads to failure for a given goal (which is what your claim above is inherently), then there can be no awareness of sustenance. How do you propose materialists have gotten around this William?”
WJM: “By materialism not being true.”
Cool – I have seen enough of WJM’s philosophies and, shall we say, quirky use of logic, that I anticipated pretty exactly this answer from him. According to this worldview, all living beings need to be philosophers and theists, they need to have axioms and believe in first principles, etc., otherwise they could not survive. It’s an amazingly self-defeating worldview, really.
This is exactly the kind of thing I was referring to when I commented on your “simple-minded approach to Philosophical reasoning and apparent disinterest to do any better.” It would be pointless for me to offer more links when you have ignored my previous contributions, none the less such premises do exist despite your ignorance.
How does one determine whether or not the independent agency is a delusion or is itself delusional?
While we’re at it, how can anyone establish that such an agency is independent? IF it happens to be imaginary, it is entirely dependent, and has no independence at all.
But once again, having learned nothing, William presents a binary decision – either a process is independent or it is not. How about a process that is MORE independent, which when iterated becomes increasingly independent?
William is arguing that using the same agency to begin learning the violin as is used to master the instrument is self-referential and delusional! But practicing WORKS.
But hey, I provided a long list of mechanisms for improving independence and error correction, which are not only known to work but which William relies on working to produce his very arguments, and he dismissed them all as worthless! I guess functional effectiveness, no matter how obvious or useful, can’t get off the ground. For that, you need imaginary agency. The nice thing about imaginary agency is, it can be whatever you SAY it is. Want independence? POOF, you got it. Want it to be “real”? Just SAY so. Want it to agree with you? Piece of cake, can’t miss.
Relying on effectiveness is irrational, because it means you might be WRONG. Can’t have that.
If you try real real hard, you might ask in response if it WORKS. If it does, if in fact it has been phenomenally successful and compiled a truly impressive track record of accomplishments, maybe there might be something to it.
But hey, if William’s theory says bumblebees can’t fly, and we observe them flying, who you gonna believe, the bees or Right Thinking Philosophy? The bees don’t have a prayer.
William, this doesn’t make any sense. There are several actual possibilities – there’s no such thing as materialism and you’re just making stuff up, you can’t actually tell if someone is a materialist, and the materialist perspective is actually accurate and you’re claims are wrong are among those possibilities. But how can a materialist “not be true”? Either the person actually is a materialist or isn’t – which is it? Further, given that we “atheist/materialist Darwinists” actually do live by our science and actually do operate in a world based upon our models, where are we faking it?
Of course, once again your claim is made without any substantiation – any actual example of us “atheist/materialist Darwinists” not being true. It “must be true” for your premise to be valid, but therein lies the rub – you are merely relying on some illusion to hold up your house of cards, when in reality Occam’s Razor indicates it’s not the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions – that it’s really a largely a claim that’s impossible to support.
So I’ll just discard it as another example of whimsical nuttiness. Thanks for the response!
I think I’ve figured this out. Many atheist materialists here are honestly oblivious to the ontological requirements demanded by their epistemology, and are largely incapable of distinguishing between an ontological and an epistemological challenge/question/issue.
Put in that context, I understand now why so many posts here are complete non-sequiturs, and why when asked for the ontological premise that would enable the avoidance of epistemological delusion, Elizabeth happily referred me to the same epistemology.
Do you really not know that I’m talking about the logical ramifications of the philosophy of materialism, whether any so-called atheist/materialist understands them or not?
Because the philosophy of atheistic materialism provides no ontological basis for the expectation that one can avoid epistemological delusion doesn’t mean that people who call themselves materialist atheists cannot avoid epistemological delusion; it just means their philosophy has no justification for their ability to do so.
At least people who are ontologically pure can live in an ideologically perfect world, if not one that accumulates useful knowledge.
The first of those – “there’s no such thing as materialism and you’re just making stuff up” – is probably correct.
There is evidence for the second – “you can’t actually tell if someone is a materialist” – in that WJM repeatedly refers to me as a materialist, which I am not. But I suspect it is not really an inability to tell. Rather, I think “materialist” is mostly a term of insult. It seems that if one is addressing theists, it is unnecessary to actually present an argument; simply label your opponent a materialist, and you will have automatically convinced that audience.
I’m not actually a materialist, but never mind. My own epistemology has no ontological requirements. If anything, I see ontology as a major source of mistaken thinking.
WJM:
I think you are so incapable of comprehending the world from the perspective of an ‘atheist-materialist’ that you really believe we are incapable of understanding our own position. Otherwise – why, of course we would come to the same conclusions as you! Which is why I have largely avoided this discussion: no words from such beings can penetrate your ontological/epistemological shell.
William, this isn’t that big a mystery and it doesn’t require rocket science – as a baby all I was aware of was two states: comfort and discomfort. There was no nonsense concerning “epistemology”, “ontology”, “materialism”, “superstition”, “atheism”, “distal causation”, etc. There was “comfort”/”discomfort”. That’s it. There wasn’t even an “I”; I didn’t recognize my own existence, nor was I aware of the world around me. I use words in terms of a convenient convention to describe the state of affairs now that I have a schemata in place about the states and an “awareness” of the difference, but it’s merely for convenience; it doesn’t represent any actuality. As far as “I” knew – and frankly as far as I still “know”, there was and is no “I”. There is “comfort” (and usually “sleep”, though even that’s irrelevant) and there was “discomfort”. I don’t consciously remember complaining about the discomfort – making any noises or that sort of thing, though at this point given the evidence (my mom’s stories, experience with other babies – which…let’s face it…are just memory impulses at this point…) I believe I did, but that’s irrelevant. The fact is, “I” merely associated certain events with going from state A (discomfort) to state B (comfort). There was very little association going from state B to state A simply because for the most part such transitions were gradual.
So that’s the basis of my operation; changing state A to state B in all scenarios. “I” is irrelevant in any absolute sense. “You” are irrelevant in the same way. “Reality” is just as irrelevant. These are merely terms that provide some relate model schemata for the state phase changes. That’s all. I don’t really give two fig newtons whether “I’m” real and I sure as heck could care less if you exist Bambi. It all boils down to coming up with some terminology and models to describe the awareness of state phase changes. The fact remains that my place holders give meaning to those states. Yours do not. It’s that simple.