Does theism ultimately explain anything?
Suppose I wanted to explain why my yard has grass in it: I could say the grass is there because someone planted it. Yet then someone could ask some microcosm questions: "why did they plant it there," to which I could give some explanation (after some research) about the historical reasons for planting this type of plant in a residential yard. "Where does grass come from," to which I could explain (after some more research) the natural and artificial evolution of this plant. "How did the environment in which the grass evolved before humans started using it get there," to which I could explain Earth's formation. Then Sol's formation. Then the Milky Way's formation, so on and so forth.
At some point, it would be common for a theist to say, "aha, but there's a point where you can't do this explaining anymore. Why did the Big Bang happen the way it did, which set up all of these contingencies ultimately leading to your yard having grass in it?" I would say, "well I don't know" (though as a physicist I might hem and haw over speculative things like a multiverse, I would be able to see that this doesn't really answer the question, which is about some kind of "ultimate" explanation).
The theist might then say, "well, your worldview is anemic, because on theism, I do have an ultimate explanation: because God willed it to be so, and made it so via God's power and God's knowledge."
Yet, I've always felt there's a poverty to theism's explanatory power in that it seems like it's just pushing the quest for an "ultimate explanation" one step back and never actually gets there: for instance, I don't feel like God "ultimately explains" why my yard has grass in it in a way that's more complete than nontheism. This is because I could then just ask microcosm questions of my own, such as "well why does God have the properties that God has which led to this chain of contingencies?"
The theist, of course, can't answer "because God willed it to be so." That would be putting the cart before the horse. In order for God to "will" anything or do anything at all, God has to already have properties in order to do so: so, on theism's truth, God has to have had some properties that God didn't decide on (because it requires properties to decide on properties) and couldn't have helped but to have had.
The theist's so-called "ultimate answer" still falls back to "because it happens to be so," which isn't really that powerful or impressive.
On this view, theism doesn't really explain anything at all that nontheism can't. Why is there grass in my yard? Because of a long chain of apparent contingencies that happens to be so, there is some point in the chain of microcosm questions that neither theists nor nontheists can really answer other than by shrugging and saying "I either don't know, or suppose it just must have been that way." The nontheist has to say this about the universe existing, the theist has to say this about God having God's properties. In both cases, something is supposed by someone to "just be that way," without an explanation that can be firmly rooted in God's character, will, or actions.
So what does theism explain that nontheism can't (or, put another way, what does theism explain that doesn't have some microcosm question rendering it toothless in terms of explanatory power)?
At some point, it would be common for a theist to say, "aha, but there's a point where you can't do this explaining anymore. Why did the Big Bang happen the way it did, which set up all of these contingencies ultimately leading to your yard having grass in it?" I would say, "well I don't know" (though as a physicist I might hem and haw over speculative things like a multiverse, I would be able to see that this doesn't really answer the question, which is about some kind of "ultimate" explanation).
The theist might then say, "well, your worldview is anemic, because on theism, I do have an ultimate explanation: because God willed it to be so, and made it so via God's power and God's knowledge."
Yet, I've always felt there's a poverty to theism's explanatory power in that it seems like it's just pushing the quest for an "ultimate explanation" one step back and never actually gets there: for instance, I don't feel like God "ultimately explains" why my yard has grass in it in a way that's more complete than nontheism. This is because I could then just ask microcosm questions of my own, such as "well why does God have the properties that God has which led to this chain of contingencies?"
The theist, of course, can't answer "because God willed it to be so." That would be putting the cart before the horse. In order for God to "will" anything or do anything at all, God has to already have properties in order to do so: so, on theism's truth, God has to have had some properties that God didn't decide on (because it requires properties to decide on properties) and couldn't have helped but to have had.
The theist's so-called "ultimate answer" still falls back to "because it happens to be so," which isn't really that powerful or impressive.
On this view, theism doesn't really explain anything at all that nontheism can't. Why is there grass in my yard? Because of a long chain of apparent contingencies that happens to be so, there is some point in the chain of microcosm questions that neither theists nor nontheists can really answer other than by shrugging and saying "I either don't know, or suppose it just must have been that way." The nontheist has to say this about the universe existing, the theist has to say this about God having God's properties. In both cases, something is supposed by someone to "just be that way," without an explanation that can be firmly rooted in God's character, will, or actions.
So what does theism explain that nontheism can't (or, put another way, what does theism explain that doesn't have some microcosm question rendering it toothless in terms of explanatory power)?
Comments (93)
Nature is described through human faculties and perception, reason, meaning and intent and these are the attributes people give gods but not nature.
Humans have purposes/motives but evolution says nature doesn't have a teleology. We design things for a purpose like a computer. We create moral systems nature doesn't.
I think you can defend gods and the esoteric as explaining these types of things that a purely materialist atoms banging together doesn't explain, like meaning in language, concepts, desires and so on.
Atheists appear to be trying to make us just another senseless causal determined mechanism of brute nature in my opinion.
It doesn't matter: explanation is not the purpose of religion.
In the beginning of human wonderment, there were creation stories to account for how a particular people came to be where they are and who they are. Those stories are not meant to be factual explanations: they're stories. They're self-descriptive; they express the and world-view of a cohesive group, and illustrate the basis of their moral understanding. They are elaborated into the healing stories of shamans and moral tales for the instruction of children, and dances and dramatic ceremonial performances, anecdotes and entertainments; stories whereby an itinerant adventurer might earn his supper and stories to exchange with other tribes at trade and marriage markets.
These stories were later magnified and elaborated into the civilized pantheons - the formalized gods of city-states, that had stratified class systems, top-down administrative structures and rigid legal codes. This kind of religion had as its primary function the preservation of the status quo.
As civilization grew bigger, so did their organized religion become powerful, more implausible, more remote from daily experience, offering sticks of guilt and hell and carrots of miracle and heaven to promote whatever behaviour the elite wanted from the polity.
Both science and theism are approaches to understanding reality, metaphysical positions. Neither explains anything, but both, either, can be useful and appropriate.
I think you're right.
Why do gods need defending? If they can't take care of themselves, even to the extent of being safe from non-believers, how will the gods take care of their faithful?
This does not exhibit a deep understanding of science.
What makes you think those are other-worldly, or non-physical phenomena?
Quoting Andrew4Handel
That's the Big Misconception. The fact that theists try to make everyone else behave and think as they do does not indicate that everyone else thinks and behaves as they do. We are not trying to make you into anything. We just don't buy your version of reality or want to follow your rules.
I am defending them as an explanation. Giving them explanatory powers. The thread title was "Does theism ultimately explain anything?"
Somethings have not been explained and there is no potential physical/material explanation for them things like the meaning of words and symbolism, mental representation and consciousness etc.
These things may give a reason for speculating about the existence of a deity in the shape of the human mind. I didn't specify any specific sect of gods other than ones sharing our traits and traits we have no explanation for
Humans have now invented millions of things, including writing millions of books and composing hundreds of thousands of tunes. This is design, purpose, meaning and creativity. The explanation for this involves human intelligence.
But it doesn't tell us anything about the ethics of humans and there limitations.
If one invokes God in some process they don't have to cast aspersion on his or her or its ethics.
As opposed to what? You have a deep understanding of science you want to impart which does not reduce things to fundamental particles? Go ahead.
Quoting Vera Mont
They are non physical by definition. How is a dream physical? How is a concept physical? How is consciousness physical etc?
Quoting Vera Mont
I am an agnostic and I am antireligious and don't believe in God.
As an agnostic I have debated heavily with atheists over the years and I know what common trends and beliefs are amongst them.
They also assume anyone who disagrees with them is religious and attribute all sorts of motives and beliefs to them. I can quote prominent atheists on this.
For example Richard Dawkins:
[i]"Now they swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control.
They are in you and in me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines."[/i]
Maybe it explains the human dilemma and the human character?
Well, if you already know what I'm thinking, why should i make an effort to tell you?
Yes, it's fairly clear that theism has no explanatory power. It is functionally no different to saying 'the magic man did it' or 'because the magic man says so'. As a 'reason' it's a manifestly shallow and open ended.
You can see how this generally works. If you already believe in god then the explanation god, our magic man did it or says so, is going to be convincing. Because this belief is already part of your worldview.
Atheism doesn't explain anything. Most atheists like the phase, "I don't know' when it comes to some of the more boutique questions we might have about the universe/reality. Atheism is the answer to just one question - are you convinced god/s exist?
I try not to judge atheism or theism by its idiots and fanatics.
You said:
Quoting Vera Mont
I am not a theist but you clearly have your prejudices towards them and seem to assume I was one with no evidence.
You have given me some insight into your thought processes as has years of debating with atheists as a non theist. I got a lot of vitriol for disagreeing with atheists despite repeatedly stating I am anti religious, non theistic and agnostic and don't currently believe in God.
I am currently a moral nihilist and I don't think moral claims have truth value and are rather the equivalent to preferences.
And I think the same goes for a lot of other human beliefs and institutions we want to preserve.
I'd say that morality is important.
And we live in a world without a designer.
I'm mostly in favor of moral error-theory, though I understand it effects people differently.
But the way I look at it is -- I don't care if it's true or false, I care about it. So morality survives, even in a purely physical, design free world.
Does it, though? In what sense is theism explanatory at all, keeping in mind that the purpose of an explanation is to analyze or account for something we don't know or understand in terms of something we do know and understand? Is God something we know and understand, such that saying "God did X" adds to our understanding of how/why X occurs? Or is it simply kicking the explanatory can down the road?
If non-evident "god" is unexplainable (the) brute fact, why not begin with the evident existence (or universe) as unexplainable (the) brute fact instead?
Religions have inspired art works and architecture and social systems. People have raised the question of what would existed if religion and beliefs in gods didn't exist.
as I said in a previous post
Quoting Andrew4Handel
We are trying to explain the world under a set of beliefs an assumptions. Some things are explained like the human body and its mechanisms as having a purpose. We don't just accept chaos we believe for some reason in some kind of underlying order.
What reasons would we have believe reality was rational, law driven and explicable prior to religion?
Exactly. It's a placeholder statement rather than an explanation. We could equally posit magic or the work of aliens (as some are now doing) as equivalent explanations.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
And, as I often write, religions can't provide a foundation for morality either since there is no moral framework from the Koran or Bible that isn't also a case of subjective preferences and interpretation. Hence the multiple and conflicting views held by theists who cannot agree on anything. Morality, wherever wherever we say it comes from, is always the product of human agreement and disagreement.
But moral issues can never be resolved. We cannot prove the Holocaust was wrong or a sin or breaking a natural law. Our current moral systems can be overthrown.
We will just be imposing moral systems by emotional manipulation and brute force rather than reason.
I am concerned that people claim to have abandoned religion, gods and superstition but then hold onto social norms without justification assuming they are entitled to them by their own belief system.
I can make a choice. That resolves it. I might regret it later, but if choice isn't part of a moral issue, it's a kind of illusion.
If morality is the product of humans then why can't it be the products of gods?
If we think we can do a good job of creating a moral system then why couldn't a god?
If we view a god as a super intelligence, with more power and knowledge then it seems that gods proposed powers would be greater than ours.
I would see any proposed god as a being with our unique capacities at a higher level hence the idea we are made in Gods image.
I am playing devils advocate here. But I don't see a problem with a god like entity with powers like ours but greater. We invented this the internet we could end up creating an entire virtual reality playing God ourselves.
The problem is we have had the Nazis, Pol pot and Mao along with the despots of religions.
People make moral decisions all the time with terrible consequences. The odds of getting it wrong are high and the consequences dire.
I think a potential restraint is an agnostic belief in an afterlife judgement that we may be judged for our actions later on by a higher power. karma or something
People who don't see that human morality has failed badly what with war, slavery and genocide etc are strange to me. I believe all religions are man made and they just add to the list of failures of human moralising. And you can't blame the gods if they don't exist. Just us.
I undertand.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Well, firstly the time to believe in that is when there is robust evidence of it. And what kind of pissweak god would leave morality to old books, translations and interpretations? Where do we find this morality you claim is the product of some massive intelligence? Hasn't it or they done a stupid-ass job getting it out there?
"Moral issues" such as?
That's the terror of responsibility -- what you choose will matter. What you choose matters even if you don't want it to. "People" includes you -- and that's the only person you have control over anyways.
So, knowing that making bad choices matters -- it has consequences which are dire -- you make a choice.
By all means, make a considered choice. Think about it until it feels right.
But that's how you resolve a moral dilemma.
It took humans thousands of years to start understanding reality.
The notion is that we eventually uncover the correct morality which we discover is implanted by the gods or God.
Some people believe we already have god given moral intuitions and that we are just not following them correctly.
I am someone who left a religious cult that had lots of draconian rules, we couldn't shop on a Sunday, watch television, wear makeup and Jewellery, listen to the radio, join a union, get a mortgage etc. When I left it I realised it was all made up and became a moral nihilist.
So you can either realise it is all made up or hold out hope for uncovering a true moral system somewhere. Nihilism is not a good place to be. I have partial recovered an become an agnostic not trusting any human absolutes.
All of them. There is no correct answer.
Prominent issues dividing people include Abortion and assisted suicide, capitalism and anti-capitalism.
Even issues with the greatest consensus are simply a reflection of a current consensus not a moral certainty.
I would be happy to have the answer to one moral question or ethical dilemma.
Politics is quite viciously split.
Well I think it requires faith.
Faith that you are doing the right thing and drawing the right conclusions.
What makes these "moral issues" instead of political issues?
What I'm trying to get at is what you mean by "moral" or "ethical" because that's where I suspect much of your (or my) confusion lies.
Some evidence; circumstantial; I can't absolutely prove my case. So I will respectfully bow out and let you and whoever wants to, speculate as to what all atheists think and why.
Unconvincing (to me). Why would the creator not provide creation with clear unambiguous guidance from the start, to not only make its intentions clear but prevent suffering? Having us slide into wisdom so gradually across the millennia just seems absurd, not to mention cruel. Seems to me that as story telling creatures, we will always invent a narrative to try and provide transcendent meaning.
Of course who says god/s have anything to do with morality. If we are theists how do we know or demonstrate that morality comes from god?
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Some people find it so daunting and scary they can't even think about it without 'fleeing into the arms of Jesus'. Given that humans are scared little apes, it seems hardly surprising that we seek solace and protection in religions/politics/sport/drugs.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
You have my sympathy. I imagine it is a tough road full of terror and presuppositions to overcome and understand. But also rewards and peace. Best of luck.
Morality as in a system of behaviour we expect ourselves and others to follow as if compelled.
I am not pro or anti abortion. I am man so can't have one anyway but I would like to know the answer of whether it is an correct action.
I would like to know what constitues theft and whether it is wrong. Is property theft? Is Capitalism immoral and indefensible is communism likewise?
Is the Government behaving ethically? Do I have any moral obligations? Is punishment justified? How should I treat other people? Is there a best way to live my life. Should I care about my health. Are suicide and assisted suicide right or wrong? And so on.
These questions so far have no answers. So whenever I act on a moral compulsion it is a leap of faith.
This is all fine and good... but nowhere in this post is an answer to my question, of how theism is explanatory given that explanations account for things we don't know or understand in terms of things we do. Do we know and understand God, and know and understand precisely how God accomplishes things (e.g. creating the world, answering prayers, causing miracles, and so forth)?
Or is it not the case that, according to theists, God's nature and means wholly exceed human comprehension?
The religious stance I was brought up on was That Humans are inherently sinful and failing.
We do know the right answer but are disobedient and sinful.
It is like now we have thousands of laws and many people break them and we have high crime rates.
My contention here is that if humans can design morals systems why can't gods?
It does not seem they have and I am not arguing for that. I am arguing for the coherence of a god playing the same intelligent role a human does.
Parents play God creating a new life and choosing this reality for their offspring. Even if a god started creation I don't think he or she or it could be blamed for an intelligent human beings decision to chose this world for their child.
If humans invented religion they are to blame for that and religious atrocities like the inquisition and witch hunts, they are to blame for communist and fascist atrocities and world wars and genocide.
I can't blame a god for anything at this moment I can blame human for things so to me if a god turned out to exist it would not be worse than what we are already stuck with.
I believe there is evidence of atheists literally blaming a god for human failings even whilst claiming one doesn't exist and pushing the idea that without god and religion (despite copious counter evidence) we suddenly become rational and moral.
Of course it looks that way because atheism - especially in America - is dealing with literalist apologetics and has become stuck in the refutation of hypothetical theisms. Most Christian fundamentalist views make god look like a cunt.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Sure, but why not aliens? You can keep the list of suspects coming, or does 'the magic man' theory help the buck stop somewhere in a way aliens do not?
I am saying we just need to believe the world makes sense and then ask why it makes sense and has laws and coherency.
It is like Paley's watch maker. We know watches and computers and stuff are made by humans. To give a complete causal explanation of a watch or computer we would have to explain their entire history of development and human mental states. What thought processes the first watch maker was having etc.
My basic position is that I could accept it if it turned out there was a creator deity behind reality and it could explain things like laws physics otherwise, moral intuition, mental representation and structure.
Unless morality is adaptive. Which is exactly what many scholars think is the case. So not only can morality survive in a "purely physical, design free world", its entirely possible, even probable, that the reason morality exists at all is because it helped contribute to survival.
Because like I said a deity would have extended versions of powers humans possess. We have done a remarkable job of exploring and explaining and creating so do you believe we are the highest intelligence and have the final say? or do you believe there are more intelligent alien species?
Sure, but I'm focusing on a very specific question here: is theism explanatory? Does invoking God actually explain anything?
And since explanations by their very nature analyze and account for things we don't know or understand in terms of things we do, in order to say that theism is explanatory, we have to claim to know and understand what God is and how he works. But no theist is going to agree to that, being beyond human comprehension is a pretty basic presupposition for virtually all extent theistic traditions. But that means theism isn't explanatory (and so, for instance, cannot explain "why the word makes sense"). It might be comforting, beneficial, or even true (though I highly doubt it), but not explanatory.
Just because something survives doesn't mean it is adaptive but nevertheless by that standard religion has been more popular than atheism and has encouraged mandatory procreation
has condemned other forms of sex and given people motivation to carry on against the odds so it could also be described as favourable and adaptive.
But it would the naturalistic fallacy to say something was good just because it occurred in nature. I can't see any reason why humans must carry on and person don't have children or favour other people having them. I find moral calculations condemn a lot of human behaviour including procreation.
I am concerned with the truth and making up systems on false premises to me is nihilistic.
Agreed, like theistic religions, based on imaginary deities (i.e. fictions), which are nihilistic.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
This is more like "Law" permissible public conduct / practices than the three predominant moral concepts of virtue ethics, utilitarianism or deontology, all of which begin with the idea of well-being (i.e. happiness) and none of which are practiced "as if compelled".
As I said, the "prominent issues" you've mentioned are neither "moral" per se nor "unresolved" but rather political-juridical (i.e.policy); they are resolved differently in different societies as practical compromises of the moment by the relevant, competing interests, and to the degree these resolutions mostly produce peaceful compliance they suffice.
I'm afraid like the rest of your post, Andrew, "these questions" are quite confused.
Quoting Tom Storm
:halo: :up:
:100:
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Yes, this is a good way to characterize the dawn of modern science in the era of Galileo and Newton. But there has to be more to it than this , doesn't there? Because Enlightenment scientists believed in God. I would argue that they had to. Their understanding of the metaphysical underpinnings of scientific rationality implied a divine source. Only when reason and laws of nature became relativized after Darwin, Marx and Freud could atheism begin to make sense. In other words , sciences of pure reason( like 18th and 19th century physics) require a God. Sciences ( evolution, ethnology, quantum physics, psychoanalysis) which put reasons command of itself into question unravel the coherence of God.
I have no commitment to aliens existing. And the notion of highest intelligence is a human construct which for me doesn't carry much more than a poetic meaning.
That's correct. And that's not why anyone thinks morality is adaptive. People who think morality was adaptive/evolved generally do so because it is potentially advantageous in the relevant evolutionary sense (i.e. increases reproductive fitness), and because non-human animals (including/especially primates) exhibit various stages of moral behaviors (e.g. mutual cooperation/reciprocal altruism), among other reasons. Further reading, if interested:
https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1007/s12052-009-0167-7
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-biology/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-origins-of-human-morality/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality
(And as it happens, many people also think that religion is adaptive as well, and very possibly is connected to the evolution of morality)
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Indeed. But no one said that something was good just because it occurred in nature. You said that you can't imagine morality surviving in a purely physical design-free world, and I pointed out a mechanism by which morality could exist in a purely physical, design-free world: evolution.
I'm an atheist and don't trust in any absolutes period. I think any notions of 'absolute truth' are just remnants of Greek philosophy (idealism) which infiltrated Christianity. For many former believers, this notion of an absolute truth or transcendent value is the last thing to be left behind. It is also a kind of trap door which can lead people back to theism.
[math]\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{\mathop{\Re }}}\,{{f}_{k}}(z)={{f}_{1}}\circ {{f}_{2}}\circ \cdots \circ {{f}_{n}}(z)[/math] in which evaluation is by backward recursion and n can be as large as one wishes.
This is a causal chain that may ultimately have little to do with the "original" value or values of z occuring in the distant past. So, a specific first cause may be unnecessary for a current situation.
Theology botches it all up, IMO.
What I don't think survives in morality is truth value. My notion of morality is not just rules humans invent for various reasons but the notion of moral ought's.
I can't know whether my actions are morally correct or meaningful. I can read the article "Morality and Evolutionary Biology" and comment on it if you like but I need to know how to act now and not after reading the numerous tomes of moral argument.
Humans exhibit a wide range of behaviour we have recently had two world wars, genocides and communist atrocities. In the past we had slavery among other things. All these behaviours altruistic and extremely harmful have coexisted happily.
I don't see the point of a system that allows these behaviours to coexist in equal measure ad infinitum.
For example we can do away with Father Christmas because we know our parents brought us our Christmas presents. But if our Christmas presents appeared and no one took credit for them we would need to find out where they came from.
Likewise if you came across a watch and decided humans didn't create it you would then have watch existing for no reason or you would have to give an explanation for the watches creation that didn't invoke humans. This would obviously be very hard.
I left my family religion at 17 after a traumatic time but I didn't think everything suddenly made sense. I used to think a created world made sense with a designer and purpose, then the first question I asked myself is why does anything exist? What am I doing here? To me the brute existence of reality was inexplicable.
Leaving religion freed me from religious dogma and hypocrisy, abuse etc but it didn't answer any questions. I appreciate the question why is there something? The existence of even just only one atom would raise questions for me. if things can appear for nor reason then causality breaks down and reality makes no sense.
You wouldn't be only one who thinks this. I suspect most metaphysical questions are likely to be unanswerable and often don't even make sense outside of a human frame of reference and values. A question like Why is there a universe? is of little interest to me and I suspect people who have grown up with fundamentalist religions, where everything around them is imbued with deliberate meaning, are probably left with a thirst for transcendence which is hard to quench.
The problem with the explanations of theism is their lack of predictive power, instead merely taking something already known and offering a reason for it. Narrativising, characterising and explaining something one already knows happened doesn't come under any stress unless it's identifying a pattern that should repeat. If the logic for why that thing happened is accurately described, it should not only be true in one isolated incident, it should be repeatable.
Theism can offer many explanations for things, but these explanations cannot accuratelypredict outcomes. For hundreds of years, theistic religions have been forced to give up various explanations as they were proven incorrect. Still, there are things such as "where did the universe come from?" but again, notice that the universe's existence is already known to us, and it's that fact that makes offering any number of explanations possible.
Theism can offer explanations for things where science can't, it's just that those explanations exist in environments where they can go untested. If you already know the outcome, it's easy to offer with absolute confidence all kinds of explanations for why. You see the same thing with commentators in all kinds of fields, it's not because it's "obvious in hindsight", but because the explanation exists in a place where it's safe from having its validity tested.
Once something has already happened the theists can rush in to explain why it happened, but it's not the same as a scientist who can repeat their experiments with accuracy. Scientific understanding can be used to make predictions in the real world, and scientific understanding becomes invalidated when those predictions fail. It's truly difficult and challenging to have a correct explanation that can survive rigorous testing, especially in cases where there's only one correct answer.
A madman can explain why his delusions are real, an egomaniac can explain why they're god's gift to Earth, and whatever else. What good is an explanation by itself? Where's the value? What does it matter if theism can explain something or not? From reading your OP, I'd argue you already understood this and so I'm probably just saying the same thing as you.
:100:
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Yeah, like "the brute existence" of g/G ...
Keep in mind these few bon mots while reading what follows:
[quote=excerpts from Proofs by 180 Proof]The only answer to the ultimate Why-question which does not beg the question is that there is no ultimate Why.
In other words, there is no sufficient reason for 'the principle of sufficient reason'.
And so "why there is something rather than nothing" must be because nothing stops something from happening.[/quote]
Besides, Andrew, why must reality as whole "make sense" to us when, in fact, we can make sense only of tiny parts of reality, proximately, in order to survive and thrive in our daily lives? We swin and sail and fish the oceans without ever reaching the deepest ocean floor, so what practical or existential difference can getting to the very bottom of it make to us?
Gaps in our knowledge or understanding do not contradict what we actually know or understand we learn more, make better sense, by acknowledging what we do not know without filling-in those gaps with "gods" than what we think we know. Does the lack of a greatest number entail that the real numbers "make no sense"? Of course not. Reality makes limited sense to limited minds like ours; as Zapffe/Camus point out, we become absurd whenever we deny or ignore the (human) limits of reason.
Not satisfying? Not comforting? Not ultimately meaningful?
:death: :flower:
Certainly, if morality is natural and adaptive and not God-given then moral norms/judgments don't have the sort of grand cosmic seal-of-approval they otherwise would. And people might find that unsatisfying. But being unsatisfying is not the same thing as being untrue, and your original concern was how morality could survive in a physical design-free world: evolution provides a means for that. This being unsatisfying is another matter.
Its also worth noting, though, that God/theism doesn't actually solve the problem of whether (and which) moral norms or judgments are *really* moral or correct- even if God exists and has handed down moral guidelines (via divine revelation/inspiration -> scripture, presumably), one could still ask whether these guidelines are right or correct. So even theism doesn't solve this issue, this is a more generic problem that is going to apply to most if not all moral systems as far as I can tell.
That is a very good, and important point i think not often considered by theists.
Take for example the human built watch. We built a watch for a purpose, we designed it, it has a purpose and it has a maximum function and the same can be said of numerous human inventions.
We are the authority on how our inventions best work and have some strict guidelines to follow to maximise or simply realise their function.
So I think if a god created humans and the world he or she or it would be in a position to set non arbitrary guidelines for our flourishing. A bit like with pets we tend to try and maximise their wellbeing non arbitrarily based on our goals for them.
I think the godless position is weaker because it has a universe that exists for no reason which does not seem to have purpose or telos and so why should it have laws and be subject to reason or rationality?
For example a frogs tongue flicks out when a small dot moves past its visual system. This is a reliable way to catch flies but the frog doesn't need to know what a fly is it just has to have a mechanism with a probability that most of what its tongue touches will be edible. So heuristics for human survival need not be truth preserving.
Of course it is. To begin with, no one can demonstrate what this morality consists of and everyone interprets their god's morality differently. In the end, humans cannot avoid morality as an expression of personal preference.
Saying there's a god which guarantees morality is essentially pointless since unless you can - 1) identify which god is real 2) identify that morality originates from that god 3) identify what that god's morality consists of - you are screwed. Here's a hint - god never shows up to explain morality, there are only old books which say a thing and humans who interpret the books or their understanding of god's will.
That wasn't my point.I said if a God created us he or she could know what's best for us like we know how a computer best functions because we created it. I am not saying this god exists or has revealed anything to us.
We have discovered how some of the human body works and that is is how medicine cures us. We can only discover a moral basis if one preexists for us to uncover in my opinion. Like how we uncover how the body functions.
But you didn't respond to the issue of the lack of arbitrariness. The arbitrariness would arise if a god made rules like "you must wear pink on a Fridays" which would seem to have no bearing on anything.
I was responding to this point
Quoting busycuttingcrap
If you create a serious notion of a creator deity with super intelligence it wouldn't struggle to justify its actions in my opinion. Our problem is we have limited powers to make morality stick.
But with something highly sophisticated we created in its entirety like the computer we are the master of it.
But as I say I am referring to the concepts involved not any currently religiously followed deity.
I think the break down of causality is a serious problem. Humans have survived through varying states of ignorance from having basic knowledge of our environment to the the high levels available now.
I wouldn't celebrate living in a primitive state personally. Our ability to ask questions challenges us. Once we have asked a question we can't unask it for peace of mind unfortunately.
I would question who is thriving. Some people consider themselves to be and other don't. Surviving is temporary until out inevitable death.
Some people don't want to just make do with what the current state of life and knowledge throws at them but do further investigations and their values and explorations lead to completely different and sometimes incompatible opinions and to than other people.
I think there are a lot of unanswered questions that challenge societies current trajectory that science can't resolve and sometimes the answer might be purely subjective such as what are my values and preferences.
I am honored to have your first Philosophy Forum post. Welcome.
I was agreeing with a post from @Andrew4Handel.
Quoting T Clark
It's probably best if he responds.
God is conceived as being that to which all roads lead, and at which all roads end, so unlike other.less absolute, explanations, such as aliens, or computer simulations, it is not "kicking the explanatory can further down the road".Of course if one doesn't accept such a God then it won't be seen as any kind of explanation.
The "Big Bang" hypothesis shares some characteristics with the theistic explanation for the existence of the Cosmos. It may not be that to which all roads lead, but is that in which they terminate, if looking backwards for explanation. It is certainly seen as being where all roads begin, and like God, is not in need of, nor does it lend itself to, further explanation.
It seems any explanation for a fundamental statement on which everything relies would fail to be complete. If one uses God or the Big Bang or any other hypothesis, it is always possible to ask why that is the case.
"Why does God or the Big Bang exist, why is it fundamental to our ultimate understanding, why does it explain everything?"
It just brings us further down the never-ending rabbit hole. We can continue with our theories, venturing further into the darkness, or admit that we cannot fully understand the universe (because we are part of it?).
As for God being an all-encompassing truth that explains itself, you cannot use the existence of God to prove its existence, causes, or necessity. It just begs the question.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/1560/deathmatch-objective-reality-vs-the-tao
But I don't expect you to take my word for it, or even Lao Tzu's. Instead we'll look at that most western of western philosophers, Immanuel Kant. This from "Critique of Pure Reason."
Quoting Kant - Critique of Pure Reason
But I don't even expect you to agree with Kant, only to acknowledge that seeing reality as contingent on human subjectivity is a reasonable philosophical position. I certainly see it that way and I find it very useful.
So, what does that mean if we accept it? To me it means that all of what we call reality is a hybrid between the matter and energy of science and the mind of human beings. To simplify - the universe is half-human. It has a personality, a living quality. What religion can do, and what science never can, is to recognize that. How any particular religion does that is a different question which I don't intend to address.
"Norse gods" aren't depicted looking like "Yoruba gods" or "Aztec gods". "Egypyian gods" aren't depicted as looking like "Roman or Celtic gods". "Aboriginal gods" aren't depicted as looking like "Chinese gods". European "Christ" isn't depicted as looking like Judean "Yeshua" ... Just what you'd reasonably expect of man-made gods. (Read Feuerbach, the Greek Pre-Socratics, Mosaic prohibition on "graven images", etc.)
Questions are only begged by mysteries not answered. "Godidit" begs the question, "godsaidit" begs the question. Mysteries neither explain nor justify. "Gods" are mysteries, no? Thus, not even their adherents agree on them (e.g. schisms, heretics, heterodoxies, etc). "Faith in god" self-abnegating worship often amounts to little more than believing in the unbelievable in order to defend the indefensible; otherwise just superstitious conformity to a cultic tradition.
False dichotomy & category error fallacies, Andrew. :roll: Besides, Epicureanism (e.g.) "explains" far more about "meaning in language, concepts, desires and so on" than purely im-material "gods and esoterica" (i.e. magical thinking) which conspicuously do not explain anything at all.
"Appear" to whom? Which "atheists" are "appearing" so? Clearly, Andrew, you haven't the slightest comprehension of atheism (or, for that matter, that atomists such as Epicurus were not atheists because atomism does not entail the absence of gods.)
I quoted Richard Dawkins earlier:
"Now they swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control.
They are in you and in me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_a_Machine
There is eliminative materialism largely founded and supported by atheists that has gone to the absurd point of denying mental states in order to shore up a mechanistic view of humans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminative_materialism
Key Proponents The Churchland's had this conversation:
"Paul says, he was home making dinner when Pat burst in the door, having come straight from a frustrating faculty meeting. She said, Paul, dont speak to me, my serotonin levels have hit bottom, my brain is awash in glucocorticoids, my blood vessels are full of adrenaline, and if it werent for my endogenous opiates Id have driven the car into a tree on the way home. My dopamine levels need lifting."
and
"Already Paul feels pain differently than he used to: when he cuts himself shaving now he feels not pain but something more complicatedfirst the sharp, superficial A-delta-fibre pain, and then, a couple of seconds later, the sickening, deeper feeling of C-fibre pain that lingers. "
update:
Oh I see you've added Le Mettrie and Paul Churchland. The latter is polemicizing against 'folk psychology' and the former against 'occult spiritual forces'. 'Mechanistic reductionism' is not entailed by atomism or atheism (though that sin belongs to the 'vulgar materialism' of Marxist-Leninists, logical positivists, instrumentalists, moral nihilists et al).
Just as atomism / materialism does not entail atheism (e.g. Epicurus), atheism does not entail materialism (e.g. Schopenhauer).
Baron d'Holbach
also
All religions are ancient monuments to superstition, ignorance and ferocity.
Baron d'Holbach
1770's
Its not even a question of whether one accepts that God exists or not; even supposing we do accept that God exists, if only purely for the sake of argument, theism is still not explanatory in at least one important sense i.e. analyzing something we don't understand in terms that we do understand. Which is a pretty important part of what explanations are supposed to do.
And so "God did X" absolutely is kicking the explanatory can down the road since God doing something isn't explanatory, and is merely substituting one unknown for another. Just like positing wizards or advanced aliens with inscrutable motives. This isn't to say that theism could never be explanatory, but for theism to be explanatory then we need to be able to claim to understand God and the precise means by which he accomplishes the things he's purported to have accomplished.
By the same criterion, the Big Bang hypothesis is not explanatory either. Both it and the God hypothesis posit creation ex nihilo, and we cannot understand how something could come from nothing. It would seem that any explanation has to terminate in the unexplained, in something that is merely accepted as "brute" fact or presupposition.
Nice, anthropomorphize DNA, I think I heard this story before
I don't see how that follows- in fact the Big Bang model offers a good contrast here, because unlike theism, the Big Bang model is actually explanatory, in that it analyzes something we don't understand- the CMBR, the distribution and velocity of galaxies/galaxy clusters, the relative abundances of elements, etc- in terms of a very simple mechanism: a universe that is expanding and cooling, from a hot dense prior state.
And as it happens, the part of the Big Bang model that has been observationally corroborated and is widely accepted doesn't contain any creation ex nihilo, no absolute beginning or origin of the universe- only a hot dense prior state some 13.8 billion years ago. Extending the model further back than that takes us into energy densities we cannot test empirically, and into a regime where we fully expect classical models (like GR and the BBT) to break down and cease to be good or accurate models of reality. Talking about the BBT positing a beginning or origin of the universe is a bit of sloppiness on the part of science journalists and communicators that has greatly mislead the public and harmed scientific literacy in general.
Of course, theists will say, if they accept the BB, that God caused it. At least that introduces a conscious intention into the story.(not that I personally buy it). It remains the case that if you posit a chain of causes, you either must accept that the chain had no beginning or else posit a first cause that itself is uncaused.
Neither is a satisfactory explanation, but we should not expect anything more. So, it's not really a case of "kicking the explanatory can further down the road" at all, but of acknowledging that whatever traditional explanations we might accept, or novel explanations we might come up with we are going to hit a wall beyond which our explanations cannot penetrate.
This isn't accurate; the part of the Big Bang model that is empirically corroborated and widely accepted posits an expanding and cooling universe from a hot dense prior state. That's it. What, if anything, preceded this remains an open question: past-eternal extensions to Big Bang cosmology are perfectly consistent with observation. They may even be preferred to past-finite cosmological models; our most promising candidate theories of quantum gravity (loop quantum gravity/cosmology and string/M-theory) posit a past-eternal or cyclical universe, as does Penrose's conformal cyclical model (for which Penrose has claimed observational corroboration in the CMB data), and many varieties of inflation (which most cosmologists accept, despite the lack of testable predictions).
And in any case, I never said that theism fails to be explanatory because it posits a brute fact or posits an absolute beginning to causal chains- I said that it fails to be explanatory because God is not a well-understood mechanism or entity, but rather an unknown that is as much in need of explanation as whatever God is being invoked to explain (if not more). It cannot credibly be claimed that this is also true of the BBT, because whereas theism posits an unknown, the BBT posits a simple and understandable mechanism: an expanding and cooling universe. So, theism is kicking the explanatory can down the road, BB cosmology is not. As I said already, the BBT is a useful contrast to theism in this respect, since it is explanatory in precisely the manner theism is not.
That's right; the furthest we can think back towards an origin is this "hot dense prior state" which was a dimensionless point.
This is really no more a well-understood "entity" than God is. There is physical theory and there is theology; nether of which are exhaustive or definitive.
God is different, though, because if you ask for a physical explanation of God, you show that you do not understand the concept.
It's not the "expanding and cooling universe" that God explains; He doesn't explain the physical theory even if He might be believed to have been its origin. Our physical theories break down at the BB, so we are no better off when it comes to explaining in physical terms the origin without the idea of God than we are with It. In other words all the physical theory is consistent with God or without God; it makes no difference.
I think we might agree on one thing, though; and that is that "God did it" is not any better. from the point of view of advancing physical theory than "it just happened"; but I don't think many would claim that 'God did it' is a physical theory.
As an atheist I generally proffer 'I don't know' when people ask about consciousness or abiogenesis or the origin of the universe. Atheism doesn't hinge on explanations, just on whether theism convinces or not. I think our tentative scientific accounts of such matters offer better inferences but neither science or god are done explaining the tough questions. God seems a particularly fragile and tendentious explanation primarily because theism itself remains obscure, and as far as I can tell, incoherent.
I have to admit it seems somewhat incoherent to me too, but the theologians would have something else to say, I imagine. As always it all depends on your founding presuppositions.
Yes. Same as serial killing. Some of us think it's a bad thing. :razz:
No, our ability to reliably roll the cosmic clock backwards stops before we get to the "Big Bang singularity": our models hold up well until about 10^-30 seconds (I forget the exact number, but this is the ballpark we're talking about) after this, but earlier than that we lack both an appropriate theory or model, and are unable to observationally corroborate predictions since we cannot recreate those conditions in our best particle accelerators.
So the singularity falls outside the part of the theory that is empirically corroborated and widely accepted; most, if not all, cosmologists regard the singularity at the hypothetical t=0 as an artifact of classical physics breaking down (this was the moral of the story with Penrose's singularity theorems), not as representing anything physically real. From what I gather, the existence of this singularity just by itself would be sufficient to show that classical physics has ceased to be a good or appropriate model for these conditions (its essentially the physics equivalent of a reductio), but this is even more emphatic because the singularity appears in precisely the conditions where we would already expect classical physics to break down: i.e. once gravitation because significant on the quantum scale, and QM and GR come into serious conflict. So a theory of quantum gravity is probably what we need to adequately model what is happening in these earlier stages of the universe, which is why its significant (imo) that our most promising candidates suggest an eternal past.
But you are right that this (very probably artificial) breakdown in physics represented by the Big Bang singularity would seriously call into question the explanatory value of any proposal containing such an entity. But the BBT, the parts of it that are well corroborated and accepted at any rate, does not contain such a thing. It posits a simple, understandable mechanism for why we see what we see: the universe is expanding and cooling from a hot dense prior state some 13.8 billion years ago, which explains a large body of observations from the recession of galaxies to the CMBR, and more besides.
So the BBT is explanatory in precisely the way that theism is not. That's not even necessarily to say that theism (or divine creation) is untrue... it just isn't explanatory in at least one important sense.
:up:
Quoting Tom Storm
:lol: There are not many who don't share that presupposition!