I'm taking a philosophy course currently, and in all honesty I'm a fan of it. It pisses me off, yes, but it's been challenging me to think more logically rather than simply state something: Why do I believe something, rather than saying I believe something.
In all honesty, the class is overall giving me more grounds in my faith rather than shaking away my Christian beliefs. A lot of people think any God existing is illogical and stupid, but it's really not, if you consider it.
For example, take a look at Descartes. Most would acknowledge him to be a fairly intelligent individual. He derived that the only constant truth we can initially find is that we ourselves exist - "I think, therefore I am." He adds on, from this, that a God must exist, because "I could not exist without Him." Most people would find controversy here, but he comes to this conclusion from the idea that no person can truly have any pure imagination - every idea somebody comes up with is generally based on something that we do know.
In example, one might say I can think of flying even though I know it's not true. But in actuality, this isn't necessarily original - it's taking two concepts (a person and the idea of flying), and merging them together. We know a person is real, and we know flying is possible, so we derive the idea of a person flying, though in the sense of a person actually flying, it is proven impossible (without external mechanics).
So, how can someone possibly think up some "higher power" without the ability to purely imagine something? Well, if it were a constant truth, then we could do so.
Interestingly enough, if you read Immanuel Kant's thesis, he maintains the idea that we must experience something to learn, and then once we've learned we use reason to interpret the world (and make up the world as we go along), by creating rules based on what we know. I find this to be flawed though - if we make up the world via rules we created through prior experience, then he's saying the world is essentially created by us. This takes away the ability to have previous knowledge, but if this is the case, then a baby, who has no knowledge of anything, cannot possibly learn anything new because they don't have the experience to make up the new world. He had a flaw in his "design", and it really comes up to 2 different conclusions from this flaw: a) We are born with all the knowledge of the world and we use reason to discover this knowledge (Plato/Socrates), or b) The world is already created and we must learn via this already-created world (Aristotle).
However, if you consider both of these ideas, you must question how is either idea possible without a higher being?
In a), one should question how did a newborn baby get all this knowledge? One possible answer is God has given them the knowledge at birth.
In b), the question then is what created the world. Most atheists will agree with Aristotle here, because Plato's philosophy has significant religious bounds attached. But even still, you have to answer this question in this sense then, and most people truly cannot.
The two best answers come from either the Big Bang Theory, or God.
The Big Bang Theory seems logical, but still nobody has ever answered the question "Where did all the matter come from that caused the explosion?" Most people tend to say that this is the wrong question, but it's precisely the correct question - how did the explosion even happen, for the matter had to come from somewhere, right?
Even still, the Big Bang Theory then could still support the notion of a God, because it's very well possible God created a bunch of matter initially in order to provide the Big Bang.
And yes, this is still consistent with the Bible. Consider Genesis 1:2 - "The earth was without form, and void..." Initially there was nothing, and then God began creating everything that could make up the universe. People also challenge the seven days with claims of "What about the dinosaurs?" These are valid claims, but we also must note that God is not human - so isn't it entirely possible that a day to God is not the same as a human day? In a true enough sense, I could easily say a day for CauTi0N is simply 4 hours. So every human day for you guys would be 6 for me. You see, the dinosaur argument really has nothing to do with who God is.
I'm not saying you all are wrong and I'm right. My beliefs and faith is set in stone and I personally think I'm correct in believing what I believe, but I'm not going to shove it down your throat and say you are stupid. However, I do think it's stupid when you say there is no possible way to state that all religion is illogical, because it's not. If you can prove that all religions are incorrect, then you are stating you know everything about the world - and if you can attest to knowing everything in the world, and prove it, then I will denounce my faith. Since I know you can't do that, I'm keeping what I think seems to be a perfectly logical conclusion that God is real, and Jesus Christ is my savior.
I perhaps might have took a wrong turn posting this on BYOND, but I'm hoping at least the few intelligent people I've met here will have some input. I'm not closed-minded in the sense that I won't hear you out - I just wanted people to stop thinking so closed-minded (like the Atheism guild here) as to say that all religious people are idiots.
Constructive comments only please. This is intended for mature audiences, so I'm expecting no more than 5 comments from the whole of BYOND that have any validity.
I'm not closed-minded. I've just heard all this before and it's not a very good argument.
You're not quite getting the Big Bang right - it wasn't an 'explosion' in any real sense and there wasn't any matter involved (the universe was too hot for matter for a fair bit after the event). But that's not really the point. You can ask "What caused the Big Bang?", and the answer is "We don't know". That doesn't mean "God did it". To make that leap is not only bad logic, it's bad theology - it's god of the gaps. One day, that gap may well be filled in, and where would your god be then? Basically, not knowing the answer doesn't mean that a deity is a good answer. In particular, divine intervention can explain anything and is impossible to disprove. That actually makes it a pretty poor answer, because it means it has limited predictive power - being unfalsifiable means it can coexist with any universe, so it doesn't winnow the possbilities down any. I don't accept Descartes' argument for god because I don't think it's good logic. For starters, I don't think the premise that we can't have a pure imagination is true. Secondly, Descartes neglected the fact that the concept of a god can be interpreted as an extension of several already extant ideas, like that of a king. That is, you can get to the idea of divine agency by mashing together non-divine ideas. Finally, his argument can be twisted to argue for the existence of nearly anything we can imagine. Ghosts, dragons, and Cthulu all exist via the same logic. Basically, I've got two main reasons for not believing: The first is that I see no reason to believe - we now know enough about the universe that we know it can work without a sentient being pulling the strings. We know enough about ourselves to know that we tend to interpret complexity as implying agency, a bias that we should be wary of. And we know enough about logic to know that not knowing the answer doesn't mean a deity is a good answer. So because of those reasons, I see belief in a god as being unnecessary - it's like believing in a teapot orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, as Bertrand Russell so famously pointed out. Secondly, I don't believe because several gods imply things about the universe that we know are not true - this is a positive reason for disbelief, rather than the negative reason above. So, for example, I don't believe in Thor because we've got a prety good non-hammer-related explanation of thunder and lightning, the world is not encircled by a giant serpent, and Bifrost is nowhere to be found. Similarly, I don't believe in the Christian god (and similar omnimax deities) because of the Problem of Evil argument. | |
Oh man I tl;dr'd a pretty substantial portion of this and missed this whopper:
If you can prove that all religions are incorrect, then you are stating you know everything about the world - and if you can attest to knowing everything in the world, and prove it, then I will denounce my faith. This is exceptionally poor logic. The burden of proof is not on me. To logically come to the conclusion 'god', you must provide sufficient evidence (not proof - it's impossible to prove anything, so it's asking a bit much), rather than me having to demonstrate you shouldn't believe. To see why, consider that there are an infinite number of propositions about the universe. Do you accept them all as true until they're disproved, or do you consider them all as good as each other (i.e., likely false) until you've got reason to believe otherwise? | |
It's good you've taken an interest in philosophy, but your error is a very common one - you have a vague understanding of the theories of Kant, Plato, Descartes, as well as the Big Bang (I have no understanding of that last one, but I am knowledgeable enough about the others) and so on, but you don't really understand them very well. You then try to apply this knowledge to biblical concepts, and end up with a very awkward thesis. In short, I think you lack some philosophical refinement.
I'm not saying your conclusion is wrong, but the proof itself is lacking. What you need to do is rewrite it, and rewrite it well - explain your assumptions, and explain what follows from them in detail. As it is now, your thesis is very incomplete: you say there had to be some point in which everything began. In other words, you say there is some "entity" (be it the laws of physics or God) that created the universe. This may or may not be true, but even if it is true, I don't understand why it follows that the so-called entity is divine. What makes you identify it with the God discussed in the bible? | |
I don't believe in the Christian god (and similar omnimax deities) because of the Problem of Evil argument. I found the problem of evil a pretty weak argument. If the definition of evil was so easily understood (in particular unnecessary evil) we wouldn't have argued about it for millennia. There are stronger arguments, such as someone walking on water =P. Russell's teapot is also powerful. | |
Russell's Teapot is a negative argument though - I think one can go further to positive reasons for disbelief.
It doesn't matter if we can't define evil precisely. If you can seriously argue that we live in the best of all possible worlds, you're playing silly buggers. Furthermore, religions with an omnimax deity and a heaven explicitly shoot themselves in the foot re: Problem of Evil by conceding that it's possible for the world to be better. | |
And this is why a lot of people are just going to discredit everything you're saying here. They're right to do so. That's idiotic. That's saying because I hold a belief everyone is correct in going against it with no logical backing. The first is that I see no reason to believe - we now know enough about the universe that we know it can work without a sentient being pulling the strings. We know enough about ourselves to know that we tend to interpret complexity as implying agency, a bias that we should be wary of. And we know enough about logic to know that not knowing the answer doesn't mean a deity is a good answer. So because of those reasons, I see belief in a god as being unnecessary - it's like believing in a teapot orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, as Bertrand Russell so famously pointed out. I understand and respect where you are coming from Jp. I disagree entirely, but I understand. The issue isn't how the universe works, it's how it was created. If the Big Bang says there was no matter, then doesn't that break the Law of the Conservation of matter? (This is less argumentative and more for knowledge purposes) If you read carefully, I didn't say God was the answer. I said it's the conclusion I most agree with, but I never said it was right or wrong. Nobody has that authority to say whether one side is correct or incorrect because nobody knows. As well, the Problem of Evil argument is flawed. There are too many arguments against it. The Bible itself, to defend Christianity, mentions why and how it came to be, and why things are the way they are. It's a weak argument versus Christianity. Toadfish: Would you mind explaining to me what I missed about Kant, Plato, and Descartes? I think it would be beneficial for me to learn more, like you said. Specifically in the areas of which I'm talking about. | |
Note: Please keep in mind I'd love to learn and grow. I'm still incredibly young and have a lot to learn - I'm probably significantly more ignorant than you Jp and Toadfish, and would love to learn constructively. We might disagree but I'd be able to learn how to think that much more logically from an educated discussion. I recognize I still have a lot to learn and am willing to listen.
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It doesn't matter if we can't define evil precisely. If you can seriously argue that we live in the best of all possible worlds, you're playing silly buggers. The assumption here is that our morality and God's morality are necessarily compatible. God's laws - the Ten Commandments, for example - like anything else, are subject to interpretation. That we give them moral meaning only reflects on our nature, not God's. Yes, God is "good" according to the bible (well, Christian bible), but is the distinction here between good and morally evil, or good and bad (as in, a bad test, a bad day)? The question is not whether evil exists, but what evil exists. Is evil what's undesirable to god, or what atheists define as evil? It is wrong to identify atheistic morality and theistic morality as one. I have no good justification for it, and, moreover, it seems much more plausible that a religious person is not moral at all. If you accept morality as innate and personal, while at the same time accepting a religious person follows God's law because it is God's law, then it follows morality cancel itself in the face of religion. God's laws are, as far as I understand, interpreted to be about good and evil - but this is wrong. They are about the Nietzscheian good and "bad". Admittedly, this is harder to defend in Christianity (which one could almost say is founded on the idea of God's omni benevolence in its entirety) than say, Judaism. If you meant the problem of evil is just applicable to Christianity, I think that'd be a lot more plausible. | |
Toadfish: Would you mind explaining to me what I missed about Kant, Plato, and Descartes? I think it would be beneficial for me to learn more, like you said. Specifically in the areas of which I'm talking about. Mostly minor, but significant inaccuracies. For example, Kant does indeed state our perception of the world is almost quite independent of the world itself - but it is a very central point to his thesis that a physical, objective reality does indeed exist (one thing that did irk me is you relating Plato to religion - this is quite false). The problem is more with how you apply the philosophies - I don't understand how your argument follows from the paragraphs where you discussed them. | |
Energy can turn into matter, and vice versa, given the right situation (strictly speaking nuclear fusion/fission doesn't quite do that, although it's a common misconception - a rant for another day). So there really isn't a 'conservation of matter' law - just a 'conservation of energy' law, in which matter can be traded for energy. So it's possible for there to be no matter - just energy - and then matter at some point after the Big Bang. Keep in mind that it was very 'hot' (temperature is not quite the right thing, but it's a good analogy) at the time, so it was a very special situation - in practice, matter is conserved.
If you're referring to the first-there-was-nothing, then-there-was-energy, where did it come from? aspect, the answer is kind of complex. There are a wide variety of answers. "It happened, but we don't know how" is, as always, a viable candidate (It is philosophically Very Important to be able to say "Don't know" when you don't know). Here are a few possible answers: - Conservation of energy may not apply - the chain of causality might 'break' at the Big Bang (for example, there wasn't time 'before'hand, so even the concept of 'before' doesn't make any sense here. It could be like talking about what's north of the north pole). - The total energy of the universe is actually zero. This may be difficult to understand, but gravitational fields can be interpreted as a kind of 'negative' energy, and if you do the maths, the total energy of some hunk of rock, taking into account its gravitational field, is 0. So maybe conservation of energy isn't violated because we've still got no energy, it's just that it's spread differently. - Maybe energy isn't always conserved. This is maybe less good as an answer unless we can start to pin down in which situations it isn't conserved. For what it's worth, the Big Bang almost certainly happened - with as much cerainty as science can muster. The evidence is pretty conclusive. Its exact nature is open to some discussion - Inflation, in particular, is a nasty hack - but like all scientific theories, it's wrong, but it's right enough. The alternatives that follow in the future won't differ significantly. Saying that X is the conclusion you most agree with is to endorse X. The question then is why? If there's a logical reason to favour conclusion X over the others, it's fine to go "Well I don't know but maybe X?". But if there isn't, drawing a conclusion is premature. It doesn't matter whether or not the matter can ever be settled conclusively, because nothing can be. I've heard a lot of theodicies before, so I assure you that I am familiar with the arguments surrounding the Problem of Evil. I am of the opinion that there are no good counterarguments. And yes, I have read significant sections of the bible. In particular, if your counterargument can be found in this short story, you might want to think about it more carefully. For what it's worth, the theodicy I find most compelling is the argument that suffering is not, in and of itself, evil. I think it's a bad argument mostly because I do not want to buy into any ethical system in which suffering is not bad, and my personal concept of ethics considers the idea repugnant. Toadfish: If ethics aren't universal they aren't ethics. EDIT: Oh, and I'm not familiar enough with Judaism to know - is the Judaic god omnimax? If it is, then the argument applies just as much. | |
Toadfish: If ethics aren't universal they aren't ethics. Depends on the definition, and doesn't relate to my point. Amorality is not immorality. Edit: the Judaic God is most likely not omnimax, although he is omnipotent and omniscient, I think. | |
It applies plenty - there's no "ethics for God" and "ethics for people". There's only ethics. If it's inethical for us, it's probably inethical for god. Arguing that we can't apply our ethics to a deity is just special pleading and I will have none of it. You might just as well say "You can't apply your morality to me - it's okay if I murder/rape/steal".
I really can't see any way you could sensibly define ethics such that they're not universal, but that's getting into the murky well of arguing about what morality is and we probably don't want to go there. If the Judaic god isn't omnibenevolent, the argument doesn't apply completely, of course - it means it can still exist, it just isn't worth worshipping. :P | |
I didn't write properly about Plato. I'll probably revise this many times, but rereading what I wrote I didn't mean to imply platos idea was religious, but rather one that is religious could relate better to it.
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It applies plenty - there's no "ethics for God" and "ethics for people". There's only ethics. If it's inethical for us, it's probably inethical for god. Arguing that we can't apply our ethics to a deity is just special pleading and I will have none of it. You might just as well say "You can't apply your morality to me - it's okay if I murder/rape/steal". Again, God is not moral, nor immoral: he is amoral. As is a religious person. I disagree that there is only one kind of ethics (note: it doesn't follow that ethics are subjective) - but this is irrelevant. My point is that God, and religious people, don't belong to an ethical category. Read Nietzsche and Leibovich. | |
Amoral, not-omnibenevolent god doesn't fall under the category that the Problem of Evil argues against, so that's an escape of sorts.
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Perhaps, but what category does the PoE argue against? The closest thing is Christianity, but even there it's not clear-cut. It's a weak argument because it presumes something about God which doesn't follow from core religious writings.
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It argues against omnimax deities. If it's omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, it's run into it.
Christianity is plenty clear-cut. They claim god is love, the world is clearly not built by someone who loves us, QED. | |
You really need to read Nietzsche and Leibovich's work.
e- Well, as I said, I agree Christianity is very borderline, though =P. | |
And this is why a lot of people are just going to discredit everything you're saying here.
They're right to do so.