Is Jesus Christ a man or a god?

[Immanuel Can]

Given a choice between two options, a person with free-will is the sole agent for making that choice. This is a reasonable and unremarkable assumption give the fact that the person is not being influenced by some outside agency.

When is anyone ever "not being influenced"? There are always factors impinging on any free will decision: your genetics, your level of fatigue, your prior experiences, the shape of your chair... But so what? A decision with absolutely no influences involved is impossible. But influences are not determinations; you may decide to fight your level of fatigue, draw on your prior experiences, ignore the shape of your chair...and so on. The chooser is you. "Influence" is not "determination." Determination is ironclad.

You have provided that outside agency. God as set the ratios. That being the case then probability determines the choice. That probability being the ratio God has already set. For example, 50/50, 75/25, 90/10 or whatever you think it is.
No, no, I'm sorry -- you've completely misunderstood. Perhaps it is my reference to ratios that confused you. You seem to have thought I meant probability ratios. I did not.

I didn't intend even to imply that your choice is contingent on ratios, and I certainly don't think it's true. The ratios is hypothetically suggested did not refer to some "degree of influence," as you seem wrongly to suppose, but to the amount of existing evidence with the entire world. How much of that evidence you may possess, and how you choose to respond to that evidence is entirely up to you. You may, for example, feel yourself possessed of a 50-50 balance of evidence: you feel half of the things you know suggest there is a God, and half not. Or you may believe it's 80-20 against. Or you may decide it's 70-30 for. But in all cases, you may choose to believe or ignore the evidence before you.

So if you choose to believe the balance of pro-God versus anti-God evidence you can find is 50-50, you might choose Agnosticism. But equally, you might decide that it conveniences you to disbelieve in God, so even with a 50-50 ratio, you choose Atheism. Or you could decide that 50% evidence is still pretty concerning, and decide to pursue further evidence on both sides to find out which has more, arriving at the 70-30 ratio, and then deciding to be a Theist. Or you might even realize that Atheism has no evidence at all, but still prefer it for personal reasons. Quantity of evidence can lead a rational person to favour a choice; but no amount of evidence appeals to the hard of heart.

In all scenarios, the amount of evidence does not determine your reaction. Nor does it determine how much of the evidence you are willing to consider. You choose both. You have free will.

[Immanuel Can]

What first cause has science reached, can you give me an example?

To paraphrase, "if you look to science to tell you what the First Cause was, it cannot, because science itself takes for granted causality, and relies on there being causal relations already in place. But the First Cause, by definition, cannot be causally explained." So science cannot explain its own origin. Nor can it tell you why science works. It can only take for granted that it does, and move forward.

Sounds like a kind of faith, actually.

You are still conflating two types of causation.

Not at all. I'm not asking you to take anything here on faith, or to subscribe to any metaphysical view. Science itself assumes that if there is a causal chain, then logically, there is always a First Cause. That doesn't require any metaphysical commitments to know.

[Ginkgo]

Did you not pay attention? Did I not just say "science itself collapses when it reaches First Cause"? Those were my very words. To paraphrase, "if you look to science to tell you what the First Cause was, it cannot, because science itself takes for granted causality, and relies on there being causal relations already in place. But the First Cause, by definition, cannot be causally explained." So science cannot explain its own origin. Nor can it tell you why science works. It can only take for granted that it does, and move forward.

No, you didn't say those words. You made those words out to be the thoughts that were intuitively running though my mind. How about you worry about your thoughts and I will let you know what my thinking is when I am good and ready. Just for the record those was not my thoughts.

[Ginkgo]

I see.

You have deleted that bit now. I have an idea IC .how about you pay attention in future.

[uwot]

If it's a live philosophical question whether or not God exists, then the very thing we need to do in order to make progress is to hypothesize -- first, if God exists then X, and then, if no God exists Y, and so forth, until we start to see what makes sense. But if that's a process that gives you no joy, don't worry.

Sounds like fun. So, how would you tell the difference between a world in which your god does exist from one in which it doesn't exist? Would it be different from an illusory or simulated one?

As for the FSM, it's just Dawkins again.

As it happens, it's Bobby Henderson.

It's a cute figment, but it has no relevance. He's positing a contingent, imaginary creature instead of a rational First Cause, and then ridiculing by means of a simplistic reduction ad absurdum fallacy.

Reductio ad absurdum isn't a fallacy, it's a form of argument that supports the validity of a thesis by demonstrating that the antithesis is 'absurd'. The 'Flying Spaghetti Monster' is a parody and although it is a "cute figment", it makes a serious point. It's the same one I made in a previous post which you failed to respond to: any unfalsifiable hypothesis could be true; it's the same point Bertrand Russell highlighted with his flying teapot.

He's trying to avoid the hard work of explaining causality by ridiculing God. It's kind of transparent, and also a paltry way for a scientist to behave with a serious scientific question.

I'm pretty certain Bobby Henderson was a student at the time. The Flying Spaghetti Monster was not created to account for causality, which is not a serious scientific question.

For if you know about First Cause arguments,

I know about quite a few things; absolute, contingent and analytic truth springs to mind, and for you to habitually imply otherwise is a bit rude, or perhaps just stupid, but apparently not un-Christian.

then you'll know that First Cause is both a scientific and a Theistic postulate,

As Ginkgo says, no it isn't. One of the defining features of science is that it does not anticipate the discovery of first causes. (You should not confuse a 'theory of everything' with 'First Cause'.)

the matter to be settled afterwards being only the nature of that Cause -- not its or His necessity.

And what evidence do you have that it isn't the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

What it's got to do with flying spaghetti...well, you be the judge.

Funny you should mention judge; the Flying Spaghetti Monster was originally invoked in response to the legal claim by creationists to have their beliefs taught as science, in Kansas as I remember.
You quite clearly don't know much about the Flying Spaghetti Monster, reductio ad absurdum, or science, your view of which is medieval. What you appear to have done is create a fairly typical narrative which in your words "makes sense". The fact that there are grown men who wear pointy hats and skirts that agree with some or all you are saying, doesn't give it any credibility. You, like many others, confuse a coherent story with a true one.

[uwot]

So science cannot explain its own origin. Nor can it tell you why science works. It can only take for granted that it does, and move forward.

Sounds like a kind of faith, actually.

It is nonsense to claim that science takes for granted that it works. When it stops working, it gets changed; that doesn't require any faith.

[Ginkgo]

double post

[Ginkgo]

You are still conflating two types of causation.

Not at all. I'm not asking you to take anything here on faith, or to subscribe to any metaphysical view. Science itself assumes that if there is a causal chain, then logically, there is always a First Cause. That doesn't require any metaphysical commitments to know.

Science doesn't assumes a casual chain. The whole idea is that it doesn't assume such a thing. In fact, maintaining the distinction between two different types of causation is a very important precept that separates science from metaphysics.

I wasn't talking about faith I was talking about causality. See uwot's post on this as well.

[Immanuel Can]

Okay, Ginko.

You've got a lot of stuff there...causality, the FSM, pointed hats, science, the reductio, hypotheticals...

For the time and space we have, I suggest we work on one at a time and see how far we get, then work on another one after that, so long as interest or relevance holds. At the moment, I'm just not quite sure what it is that's your priority here.

Can we pick something? Let's aim for one. I'll let you choose.

[uwot]

Okay, Ginko.

You've got a lot of stuff there...causality, the FSM, pointed hats, science, the reductio, hypotheticals...

For the time and space we have, I suggest we work on one at a time and see how far we get, then work on another one after that, so long as interest or relevance holds. At the moment, I'm just not quite sure what it is that's your priority here.

Can we pick something? Let's aim for one. I'll let you choose.

How about this?

So science cannot explain its own origin. Nor can it tell you why science works. It can only take for granted that it does, and move forward.

Sounds like a kind of faith, actually.

It is nonsense to claim that science takes for granted that it works. When it stops working, it gets changed; that doesn't require any faith.

[Ginkgo]

Can we pick something? Let's aim for one. I'll let your choose]

Sounds like a good idea. Let's start with a first cause argument and then we can move back to other posts-if needed. Naturally, first cause arguments involve an explanation for causation.

To paraphrase, "if you look to science to tell you what the First Cause was, it cannot, because science itself takes for granted causality, and relies on there being causal relations already in place. But the First Cause, by definition, cannot be causally explained." So science cannot explain its own origin. Nor can it tell you why science works. It can only take for granted that it does, and move forward.

As you know first cause arguments go under the generic name of "Cosmological Arguments". Wikipedia also refers to such arguments as universal causation. The idea being that every event results or is a consequence of some previous event, and so on. This is probably why some people use the "chain" analogy.

In terms of the Cosmological Argument is is usually postulated that God was the first cause of the universe and all other events followed from his act of creation. I am an not putting up any sort of arguments for or against this theory. The only point I would make is that by stopping short of actually naming the first cause, somehow we are safe in the knowledge that we are doing science. We are not.

You make the point that casual relations are already in place when it comes to science. To an extent this is true because we live in a world of cause and effect. However, the important point is that science never assumes universal causation. If it did then science would never need to conduct any experiments. Some event would always connected to some other event and so on. It would simply me a matter of investigating casual chains in order to find answers. Without the experimental method we don't have science.


P.S. I am not trying to demean first cause arguments I think some of them are very good metaphysical arguments, but they are extremely poor scientific arguments,

[Immanuel Can]

The only point I would make is that by stopping short of actually naming the first cause, somehow we are safe in the knowledge that we are doing science. We are not.

Safe? No, I would agree we are not "safe" to do it. But since the first scientists clearly did not have the means to test for a First Cause all the way back to the beginning of whatever any more than we do today, they did not commence science on the basis of test-and-evidence. What they did -- well, what Francis Bacon, the inventor of the scientific method itself did -- was to take for granted that we live in a universe governed by reasons and regularities: that things do not happen (have "effects") without something causing them to come about, ("cause," obviously). An alternative to "magical" thinking, in which things just happen, scientific thinking looks for these causes, and expects them.

But why? How did Bacon know we live in a rational, law-governed universe? Having no scientific method yet even to test such a postulate, how did he know? In any case, he couldn't use science to test science, since it would be the very validity of science itself he was attempting to test: that would be circular reasoning -- science is true because science says so!

In point of historical fact, he did not do this. We know, in fact, what he did. He took for granted that there was a law-giver God who would not establish an irrational universe; and through knowing these laws, we could know more about the purposes and character of that God. So he put together a systematic method for examining the world on the presumption of the existence of these laws. He was, after all, not just a scientific writer but a passionate composer of theological writings as well.

Science -- at least as a formal systematic method, as the mechanism which has given us the modern world -- thus began with an assumption, a theological assumption, a Theistic assumption.

Now, what has this to do with First Cause? Well, Bacon's assumption of First Cause produced the scientific method. It was a very important moment: but it was not based ON science. Science still has no way to verify its own First Cause, and to this day proceeds on the assumption that the scientific method should always keep working, at least on physical problems. Even Dawkins admits this, but pacifies himself with the mantra, "...it must be admitted...but science is working on that..." He has faith that one day science will show first cause, and yet he knows it has not.

So we have, throughout the history of science, been doing science without a first explanation of why science works, and doing so on an ex post facto basis that we turn out to have been right that the universe runs by predictable regularities and natural laws.

Safe? Maybe not. But it is what science does.

[Ginkgo]

Science -- at least as a formal systematic method, as the mechanism which has given us the modern world -- thus began with an assumption, a theological assumption, a Theistic assumption.

Believe or not some people still think these assumptions still apply to science. You know, pseudo-scientific theories such as YEC, Intelligent Design and Creationism.

[uwot]

...Well, Bacon's assumption of First Cause produced the scientific method. It was a very important moment: but it was not based ON science.

Unlike some strands of religion, science does not take any given book as The Truth. Francis Bacon advocated empirical observation and inductive reasoning and was very influential in the English speaking world, which at the time was basically England. Much more influential in establishing those parts of the scientific method was the work of Galileo. The other major aspect of the scientific method, mathematical analysis, had been studied since Pythagoras and the closest science has ever been to a holy text is Ptolemy's Almagest. Kepler's laws of planetary motion further cemented the importance of mathematics, but it was Newton's analysis of Kepler which resulted in his law of universal gravitation that put the tin lid on it. Since that time, the defining features of at least physical science is the empirical and mathematical description of the phenomenal world. Causes, particularly 'First causes' are interesting, but not essential to science. As Newton said (I'm paraphrasing) 'Having sufficiently demonstrated the movements of the tides and planets, I have been unable to discover from first principles the cause of gravity and I frame no hypotheses. For what is an hypothesis of, be it of occult or natural origin, has no place in natural philosophy.'
It is still the case that we don't know the cause of gravity, but that doesn't stop Einstein's mathematical model of contorted spacetime working very well. Science does not need to know why something happens in order to observe and measure it.

Science still has no way to verify its own First Cause, and to this day proceeds on the assumption that the scientific method should always keep working, at least on physical problems.

You are confusing 'First cause' with methodology.

Even Dawkins admits this, but pacifies himself with the mantra, "...it must be admitted...but science is working on that..." He has faith that one day science will show first cause, and yet he knows it has not.

Can you cite an instance of Richard Dawkins saying either of those quotes in relation to first causes?

So we have, throughout the history of science, been doing science without a first explanation of why science works, and doing so on an ex post facto basis that we turn out to have been right that the universe runs by predictable regularities and natural laws.
Safe? Maybe not. But it is what science does.

Science responds to the phenomenal world; it doesn't presume to tell nature what to do.

[Ginkgo]

Unlike some strands of religion, science does not take any given book as The Truth. Francis Bacon advocated empirical observation and inductive reasoning and was very influential in the English speaking world, which at the time was basically England. Much more influential in establishing those parts of the scientific method was the work of Galileo. The other major aspect of the scientific method, mathematical analysis, had been studied since Pythagoras and the closest science has ever been to a holy text is Ptolemy's Almagest. Kepler's laws of planetary motion further cemented the importance of mathematics, but it was Newton's analysis of Kepler which resulted in his law of universal gravitation that put the tin lid on it. Since that time, the defining features of at least physical science is the empirical and mathematical description of the phenomenal world.

Yes, IC is confusing "top down" with "bottom up explanations". Science doesn't posit self-evident axioms as a starting point which we can deduce other truths. That's the job of metaphysics.

Causes, particularly 'First causes' are interesting, but not essential to science. As Newton said (I'm paraphrasing) 'Having sufficiently demonstrated the movements of the tides and planets, I have been unable to discover from first principles the cause of gravity and I frame no hypotheses. For what is an hypothesis of, be it of occult or natural origin, has no place in natural philosophy.'
It is still the case that we don't know the cause of gravity, but that doesn't stop Einstein's mathematical model of contorted spacetime working very well. Science does not need to know why something happens in order to observe and measure it.

Yes, even theological scholars acknowledge this.

http://www.documents.routledge-interact ... gument.pdf

The text is telling us that scientific laws pre-suppose those laws exist and the universe is governed by those laws. Science cannot explain those laws in terms of where they come from and why they are the way they are. Scientific laws are just hard facts because they have no explanation. This is pretty much I.C's position anyway.The limitations of science are lifted if we are prepared to extend meaning. If we do so then we are no longer doing science.

Science still has no way to verify its own First Cause, and to this day proceeds on the assumption that the scientific method should always keep working, at least on physical problems.

You are confusing 'First cause' with methodology.


Yes, Science doesn't use a first cause methodology.