Has religion been a boon or a bane to mankind?

[Immanuel Can]

...natural selection is design without designer...

Actually, it's not.

A "design" means that something intentional is being produced. You're speaking of merely a pattern or regularity of some kind, but no design. However, even the existence of a "pattern" in nature would require explanation. Why does a "law" like "survival of the fittest" hold, if it does? That needs to be answered. And so you're back to asking, "What designed the survival-of-the-fittest program of evolution." That doesn't get you away from a designer; it just moves the question to a different level, and one much harder to answer superficially.

If chance were all that existed, we would not have reason to expect any regularities at all...even in nature. Indeed, read David Goldberg's article in "Slate" on this, and you'll see that it's far worse than you've even imagined: by all rights, the whole universe should not exist, let alone a world, let alone people. And certainly never mind "survival of the fittest." That doesn't even get us to stage one of an answer.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_an ... exist.html

[Immanuel Can]

To all those reading this thread.... IC is correct by what he says in the above quote.

Because knowing is not known by a someone, that someone is the knowing. You are that knowing. To deny God is to deny You. And you cannot deny You for You are...other wise you wouldn't be reading and writing on this thread.

Also, the You in question here, is not who you think it is, it's prior to thought, and it's also the thought manifest...aka knowledge.

Wow. I've never been so certain I didn't want an endorsement. None of what you say was what I meant.

[Immanuel Can]

...not many for how religion has been a boon.

Oh, is it boon time?

Okay.

Let's give an Atheist the first word...

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/c ... 044345.ece

[Londoner]

If chance were all that existed, we would not have reason to expect any regularities at all...even in nature.

'Chance' is not a thing, it does not exist. To talk of 'chance' is to reflect the uncertainty of the observer. It does not mean 'indeterminacy'. If I talk about it being a matter of chance whether a dice that I throw falls '6', I am not saying I am unsure the dice will land on any number. The chance that the dice will land on some number is 100%

The universe has to be in some state and that state would then be what is regular. A state of the universe in which no life was possible, or where the Big Bang had not occurred, would be different to what has happened, but it would still be regular.

Simply; suppose you see a desk where everything is neatly lined up. You argue; there must have been something that caused this; there must be an organiser, a designer. But a messy desk will equally have been caused by something. That you see design in the first, and not the second, simply reflects your own preference for having a tidy desk; if you had the desk, that is how you would want it to be.

Similarly, we are assuming that this universe is how things ought to be. To argue that the nature of our own world indicates a designer, only works if you have already assumed a designer, with a purpose. If we have already assumed that (a) there is a designer and (b) he wanted to design a universe like this one - then indeed, that this particular world exists, would be the work of that designer. But plainly, we have assumed our conclusion in our premises.

[Londoner]

Me: Probability does not come into it, because such theories account for anything.
I confess I cannot understand the specific meaning of this sentence. How does a "theory" eliminate "probability"?

Me: Theories like 'we are all brains in a vat' or 'the universe was designed' admit no examples where they are not the case, therefore we cannot talk of probabilities.
Problems: it's only a theory, it's not the only possible theory, it's not the most plausible theory...in fact, it's arguably THE most improbable theory. To deal with it, all we CAN talk about it probabilities...but very, very high ones.

I'll go out on a limb and say this, too: you don't believe that theory. For if you did, we again would not be having a conversation. You would only be imagining me, and I would only be imagining you, and there could be nothing more futile than the imaginary conversation of both sides.

But I think you've dismissed the "brain in a vat" theory yourself, and I take your responsiveness here as evidence of that. So why have you done that, if its gross improbability is not the reason?

The important point about such theories as that they account for everything, so there can be no counter-examples. There is no piece of evidence that can disprove them, because everything can be accounted for within the theory.

Every empirical experience you might have, that you think suggests we are not brains in a vat, might have been put into your head by the person who controls your brain. Similarly, if 'everything is by God's will', then there is no possible event that could show that was wrong; there is an earthquake? Because it was God's will. There is no earthquake? Because it was God's will. The laws of physics? Are God's will. And so on.

So, since every possible event is contained in the theory, we cannot talk about the theory being only 'probable'. If something is 'probable', we are saying it might not be the case, but these theories cover everything; the coin falls heads, the coin falls tail, the coin bursts into flames...all these events are manifestations of the will of God (or have been put in our brains by the scientist outside the vat).

The line to take with such theories is not that they are true or false but they are inconsequential. They do not enable us to predict future experiences, or solve problems. It makes no difference whether they are true or false, because everything stays the same.

[Londoner]

Me: ...it is a return to the issue we discuss elsewhere, that of 'truth'. I do not think any word is tied to some sort of fact, such that it is true when linked to that fact and false when it isn't. Language does not, and cannot, work like that.
But "truth" is not just a piece of language: it's a particular kind of language, i.e. a descriptor. A descriptor is a world that has a real-world referent, and "describes" something about it. It's also a "value-term," meaning it describes a particular desirable attribute had by some things and not by others.

So "truth" is anchored inevitably to the real world. It's not "just a word."

If it is more than one thing, what you call a 'descriptor' but also a 'value term', then we would already have two meanings.

To look at one, to say 'truth' is anchored to the real world is to use a metaphor that conceals a lot of problems.

You would agree that 'truth' just on its own is not attached to the real world? Rather, we say things about the real world, ('the cat is on the mat') then endorse those things with the description 'true'. So the truth resides in the connection between words and objects. It suggests the Augustinian idea, that a word is the counterpart of an object; when I say 'cat' this is linked to one particular set of sense impressions, like 'furriness' and a 'meow' noise.

I'm sure you are aware of the many problems with this idea, for example how then can we talk about 'cats' unless we are having an identical sense experience? And the many ways philosophy has attempted to resolve it, the notion that the word 'cat' is instead referring to a Platonic ideal of a cat, or that the meaning of 'cat' can be reduced to a collection of 'atomic' sense experiences. The upshot being that we have been unable to link the word 'cat' with any specific 'real world' thing. Rather, language is understood as a tool for communication, such that our use of words like 'cat' and thus 'true' depend on what sort of thing we are trying to accomplish.

But there's an even bigger problem: are you saying that "truth is just a word" is a true statement? If you think it's "true," then what is it exactly you're trying to say about it, except that everybody reasonable ought to believe what you say about it?

But why? "Truth" is just a word, right?

I think truth is a word because we are using it to communicate, along with all the other words in these sentences. I never encounter 'truth' other than as a word. I don't see why you say it is 'just' a word; it is just a word in that it is not itself a sense-experience. That is true of all words; 'sun' is only a word, nobody will have their retina burnt out because I have typed it into my computer! Yet it is still useful, indeed vital, if we want to communicate.

The paradox you suggest only arises if you treat 'truth' as being some sort of metaphysical entity. If I said there was an object: 'Truth', then saying 'truth is only a word' would be a self-contradiction, of the 'all Cretans are liars' type. But I don't think that. I do not think there is only one metaphysical 'Truth', so there is no paradox in my saying 'X is true in one sense of that word, but not in another'.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can recommended an article by David Goldberg.

The theme was that we are fabulously lucky to exist because the enormous possibilities that nothing would exist. Or the enormous probability that nothing would exist. While this is true, its also true that something does in fact exist. It is 100% certain that something exists. It seems very probable that no thing will exist some time in the future, and that before the Big Bang no thing existed.

Within the model of the Big Bang and its creation of energy it was 100% certain that something existed.

Immanuel Can may now object that God made the Big Bang. This is the sort of theory that Londoner calls inconsequential. Whatever happened Goddidit. It so happened that God did the Big Bang: if there had been no Big Bang, God would have not done the Big Bang.

))))))))))))))))))))))))

Immanuel had challenged me:

A "design" means that something intentional is being produced. You're speaking of merely a pattern or regularity of some kind, but no design. However, even the existence of a "pattern" in nature would require explanation. Why does a "law" like "survival of the fittest" hold, if it does? That needs to be answered. And so you're back to asking, "What designed the survival-of-the-fittest program of evolution." That doesn't get you away from a designer; it just moves the question to a different level, and one much harder to answer superficially.

On the contrary, it's easier to answer. There is no need to postulate a supernatural Designer; the designer is nature which, as absolute, is the only thing that is the cause of itself.

[Immanuel Can]

To talk of 'chance' is to reflect the uncertainty of the observer. It does not mean 'indeterminacy'.

Only presuming Materialistic Determinism would that be true. But MD is something that needs proof itself, and personally, I don't believe in it because of how much that is generally known to be important in the world it cannot account for. I think it's Reductional.

If I talk about it being a matter of chance whether a dice that I throw falls '6', I am not saying I am unsure the dice will land on any number. The chance that the dice will land on some number is 100%

In a "chance-governed" universe, you don't even have a die. No two molecules act in any predictable way toward each other. There are no laws, and matter has no integrity at all.

To get anything to exist, you already have to have regularities -- scientific laws -- in place. But if such exist (and we both think they do), they cannot plausibly be explained as products of chance, which is definitionally randomness or, as you put it, "indeterminacy."

The universe has to be in some state and that state would then be what is regular.

You might take a look at the Goldberg article I sent to Belinda (above). There is, in fact, no reason there has to be any "state" at all.

But a messy desk will equally have been caused by something.

The whole desk is itself an indicator of design, actually. So is the room the desk is in, the house in which its found and, I would argue, the world in which we find the house. So a little mess on a desk is not a good analogy for the kind of disorder implied by a chance-governed universe. Such disorder would have to be absolutely comprehensive of all. Any order at all requires some explanation of cause.

Similarly, we are assuming that this universe is how things ought to be. To argue that the nature of our own world indicates a designer, only works if you have already assumed a designer, with a purpose.

No, induction doesn't work like that, nor does abduction, and both are relevant to deciding the question. You can start with the observation, and then move the most plausible explanation.

However, your objection is right in a more profound sense: that if you're going to do ANY explaining, you already have to take for granted a) the existence of phenomena as data-in-need-of-explanation, b) a rational observer to do the explaining, and c) a cause-and-effect coherence to the universe, such that explanations are relevant. All that is not "religion," at least not in the normal vocabulary; rather, it's science. But you're right: it's assumptive. However, without these assumptions we cannot know anything. All science, then, is founded on basic assumptions of this sort, assumptions which science itself cannot "bootstrap" itself as if "science" itself were the adequate explanation for them. We just have to believe them, or there is no science...in fact, no knowledge at all.

But plainly, we have assumed our conclusion in our premises.

In the deeper sense I've just outlined, yes: and without those three assumptions, no science is possible at all. But the explanation I'm offering (a Designer) is not presumptive in the premises: rather, that's the conclusion of the functioning of the earlier assumptions, those necessary to science in the first place.

And those we cannot do without, whatever we conclude to be the case.

[Immanuel Can]

There is no piece of evidence that can disprove them, because everything can be accounted for within the theory.

Non-sequitur. Just because an "explanation" is possible and comprehensive does not make it the exclusive explanation, the correct explanation or the necessary explanation. It just makes it a very elaborate mistake.

There was a time when people believed that matter was solid. That is a comprehensive explanation, covering all things: there was no "further down" to drill, it was thought, and nobody yet had the means to show it wrong. So it was just like the brain-in-a-vat. And yet, it was wrong.

Similarly, if 'everything is by God's will', then there is no possible event that could show that was wrong; there is an earthquake? Because it was God's will. There is no earthquake? Because it was God's will. The laws of physics? Are God's will. And so on.

That's Divine Determinism, the theological counterpart to Materialist Determinism. But I'm not a Determinist at all.

I agree that both Materialism and DD make comprehensive claims. Again, they are wrong claims: and you can know that for certain, even without my say-so. For they contradict each other as to cause, so both can't be right.

Again we see that it's not enough for an explanation to "account for everything." It must also be right, or that is of no value.

The line to take with such theories is not that they are true or false but they are inconsequential. They do not enable us to predict future experiences, or solve problems. It makes no difference whether they are true or false, because everything stays the same.

While I'm with you on rejecting both DD and Materialism, I think they actually are much more important to refute than you are suggesting.

In fact, if true, Materialism would make it possible in theory to predict every future event, if you had the instrument to do it. That does not prove it correct, of course. But neither does it show it false. But what both would do is deprive both you and I of any reality to our choices, of any actual individuality, and of any non-fixed course at all. Even rationality itself, which clearly we both value, would be no more than an accidental collocation of atoms.

I think that's too much to give away.

[Immanuel Can]

If it is more than one thing, what you call a 'descriptor' but also a 'value term', then we would already have two meanings.

Actually, neither "descriptor" nor "value term" are labels indicating "meaning." Rather, they are labels pointing out how that word functions in relation to others, at the syntactic level -- what "job" does the word do in a sentence.

It's like saying that a man is a husband and a father. They are two functions ascribed to the same entity. Neither tells you who he actually is. They just describe roles he occupies in relation to others.

To look at one, to say 'truth' is anchored to the real world is to use a metaphor that conceals a lot of problems.

Rather, we say things about the real world, ('the cat is on the mat') then endorse those things with the description 'true'.

You've just described what I was saying when I called it a "value term."

I'm sure you are aware of the many problems with this idea, for example how then can we talk about 'cats' unless we are having an identical sense experience?

Too easy. There's such a thing as comparable experience. Our minds have things called "categories," ironically, that let us recognize new cats. But yes, Plato puzzled about this.

Rather, language is understood as a tool for communication, such that our use of words like 'cat' and thus 'true' depend on what sort of thing we are trying to accomplish.

This would be true if we are the only language-users in the universe. But if we are not -- if God exists, and if He is the Author of communication -- then words have to be judged as to their truthfulness not based on our "uses" for them only, but prior to that, on their accuracy of the set of facts known to God.

However, I realize your different worldview on that may not allow you to entertain that possibility. I just point it out, therefore.

The paradox you suggest only arises if you treat 'truth' as being some sort of metaphysical entity. If I said there was an object: 'Truth', then saying 'truth is only a word' would be a self-contradiction, of the 'all Cretans are liars' type.

Yes, quite so: it is that that shows definitively that Relativism is incoherent. Like the "Cretans" paradox, it contradicts itself.

But I don't think that. I do not think there is only one metaphysical 'Truth', so there is no paradox in my saying 'X is true in one sense of that word, but not in another'

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Well, then there's no meaning communicated by your use of the word "true." For what does "true" mean, except as a value-term telling another hearer that such-and-such a statement will turn out to be the case for her as well as for you, as in "It's true that Exmouth is in England"? If she does not find things are, for her, as you have said, then in what sense would she regard your claim as "true"?

That's what I mean when I say that "true" is anchored in the real world. "True" is not a private concept, but rather a social one -- it informs others of what is the case for all of us, regardless of our preferences.

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel Can may now object that God made the Big Bang.

I'll go you one better than that. I'll ask why you imagine you can stop with that which is known scientifically to be an effect, and not suppose it needs a cause. The BB isn't the start of the causal chain at all. It also stands in need of a prior causal explanation.

On the contrary, it's easier to answer. There is no need to postulate a supernatural Designer; the designer is nature which, as absolute, is the only thing that is the cause of itself.

Not plausible, because we can demonstrate scientifically and mathematically that the universe is not, and cannot be past-eternal. So there is no way "nature" is an explanation. Like the Big Bang, "nature" is an effect. It is also an effect produced in linear time, and one with a definite end in the heat-death of the universe eventually, if mere Materialism is true and persists.

"The Big Bang" and "Nature" are both merely one step behind what you are trying to use them to explain, (i.e. the world, say) but are themselves still dependent on the causal chain. Something either physical or supernatural must have "made" nature, and something "made" the BB. But if the cause was physical, then THAT physical explanation needs an explanation, and so on...

In other words, they can't really ultimately "explain" anything -- they can only be the latest step in a far more necessary and elaborate explanation which you have yet to provide.

[Dontaskme]

Wow. I've never been so certain I didn't want an endorsement. None of what you say was what I meant.

Wasn't endorsing you, so don't flatter yourself.


Great, for not being what you meant, but nothing you or I says is truth. Words are only pointers pointing to the fact that there is a truth, but it's not known by I or you.

[Immanuel Can]

Great, for not being what you meant, but nothing you or I says is truth. Words are only pointers pointing to the fact that there is a truth, but it's not known by I or you.

Oh? Is that TRUE?

[Melchior]

More like a baboon....

[Londoner]

In a "chance-governed" universe, you don't even have a die. No two molecules act in any predictable way toward each other. There are no laws, and matter has no integrity at all.

The word 'chance' remains inappropriate, but yes; the universe might have been like that. In that universe, matter having no integrity would then be the order of matter. Why do we privilege the state of affairs that does exits, such that only this one represents 'order', therefore must have been 'designed'?

No, induction doesn't work like that, nor does abduction, and both are relevant to deciding the question. You can start with the observation, and then move the most plausible explanation.

You cannot observe 'everything' because you, as observer, are part of the thing you are observing. You cannot do inductive reasoning about the universe because there are never any negative examples; the universe never contradicts the rules of the universe.

I would suggest that the problem is that we are using the 'universe' to mean 'everything'. But we are also using it as if it was a location, meaning 'where we happen to live', such that their might be other universes. So when we talk about 'this universe' have been chosen from a range of possible universes we can only do so by contradicting the first meaning of 'universe' ('everything').

So, to say stuff about one universe ('everything') we have to imagine an observer who is outside the universe (who doesn't happen to live there). And we have done; 'God'. We do this by suggesting a parallel spiritual realm, so that although our own universe is still 'everything', there is also a separate universe of spirit. And from the point of view of that universe of spirit, our own universe is a separate object, one that can be observed.

Unless we take that step, which assumes what we are trying to prove, we cannot get started.

Re: universal theories (everything is by God's will, life is all a dream etc.)

Me: There is no piece of evidence that can disprove them, because everything can be accounted for within the theory.

Non-sequitur. Just because an "explanation" is possible and comprehensive does not make it the exclusive explanation, the correct explanation or the necessary explanation. It just makes it a very elaborate mistake.

Absolutely it does not make it the exclusive explanation. My point was that there can be any number of universal theories; none of them can be proved or disproved, so that none of them can claim exclusivity. That doesn't make them mistakes, as I wrote it makes them 'inconsequential', since whichever is true (if any) it makes no difference.

There was a time when people believed that matter was solid. That is a comprehensive explanation, covering all things: there was no "further down" to drill, it was thought, and nobody yet had the means to show it wrong. So it was just like the brain-in-a-vat. And yet, it was wrong.

'Matter is solid' is not a theory; it is a description. In due course we came up with a more complex description of the nature of matter.

The distinction is between saying how things behave a particular way, and why they behave a particular way. The law of gravity describes what things do; we say it is a law because it always seems to happen, we theorise that it will always be the case. But we cannot say why it is the case, if I say the law of gravity is 'the will of God' and somebody else says 'the controllers of the matrix have configured the illusion that way' we can look at falling apples all day and get no information to decide between them.

This is what Newton meant when he wrote 'Hypotheses non fingo'; he described gravity, but he could not give a reason for it.

Re: Language and 'truth'.

Me: I'm sure you are aware of the many problems with this idea, for example how then can we talk about 'cats' unless we are having an identical sense experience?

Too easy. There's such a thing as comparable experience. Our minds have things called "categories," ironically, that let us recognize new cats. But yes, Plato puzzled about this.

That would be like finding the meaning of words by looking them up in an imaginary dictionary. How do you know the new cats are the same as the old cats? You need an imaginary librarian to make sure the mental categories have been maintained, then that librarian needs an imaginary supervisor... Isn't it more likely that you know the meaning of 'cat' through your interactions with other people? That we fix the meaning of 'cat' not through introspection, or some innate template from the spirit world, but because when we misuse it other people will correct us; 'That's not a cat, it's a dog!'

Once again, there is was mass of philosophy that attempted to fix words to 'things', or sense experiences in this way, both using natural language and artificial languages, the most famous names probably being Russell and Wittgenstein. I would say that philosophy today, at least in the UK and USA, is still digesting the realisation that language is not transparent in that way.

Me: But I don't think that. I do not think there is only one metaphysical 'Truth', so there is no paradox in my saying 'X is true in one sense of that word, but not in another'
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Well, then there's no meaning communicated by your use of the word "true." For what does "true" mean, except as a value-term telling another hearer that such-and-such a statement will turn out to be the case for her as well as for you, as in "It's true that Exmouth is in England"? If she does not find things are, for her, as you have said, then in what sense would she regard your claim as "true"?

There is meaning, but it is not the same meaning in all cases. In the example you give, both parties understand the context, so the meaning of 'true' is established by that context. If there was a different context, for example if they were playing word games, then it might not be true; I might reply; 'No, for example there is an 'x' in 'Exmouth', but no 'x' in 'England'. Or if we were doing maths, and somebody said "It's true that Exmouth is in England" I would reply 'I don't think you understand what maths is about'. Or, a West Country nationalist might dispute the 'true', they might say 'Exmouth is in the West Country; the English claim it is in England is a lie!'.

That's what I mean when I say that "true" is anchored in the real world. "True" is not a private concept, but rather a social one -- it informs others of what is the case for all of us, regardless of our preferences.

Which? If 'truth' was anchored in 'the real world' then the social concept would not matter. Exmouth would be in England regardless of our preferences. But if it is a social one, then the location of Exmouth would be whatever society thought was the truth.

And of course the answer is 'both'. We understand that 'Exmouth is in England' viewed one way can be seen as an impersonal fact, but viewed another way can be seen as a social construct.