Some thoughts on religion/christianity

Discussion in 'Off Topic Area' started by ThaiBxr, Jul 15, 2006.

  1. CKava

    CKava Just one more thing... Supporter

    I really don't see how people are having problem with the concept that belief in no God requires less assumptions than belief in a hypothetical God. You can break it down into philosophical games about proof and all that if you want but in the end the fact is saying God (a supernatural all powerful, all seeing being interested in the welfare of mankind) exists is not the same as saying I or anyone else on here (persons) exist. The proof you need to offer for an extraordinary claim should be extraordinary yet people seem to be arguing that we should accept God exists if enough people say so (which I suppose means that UFO's must be looking pretty likely too)- or other everyday evidence that we accept for the existence of other people. God is not exactly just your average Joe Bloggs and given that I would doubt the existence of a flying man even with a few hundred eye witnesses likewise I doubt the existence of the Christian God simply because there are alot of Christians around and it says so in old books (it also says there were flying men in many old books and we dont reagrd this as fact).

    Tekken also seems to be making a (relatively) valid argument, albeit one we have heard a million times. Objective proof for the existence of God never really seems to hold up when offered to anyone who looks at it critically (see the entire history of Creationism and ID) and the subjective proofs that are keenly offered as alternatives are simply not acceptable as evidence for something like God's objective existence. To go back to the courtroom analogy which keeps popping up- its one thing to say that eye witness testimony is respected by courts but tell me if the eye witnesses were recounting their stories and kept casually mentioning that people were flying or changing rocks into monkeys (supernatural events) do you think that their evidence would be considered solid fact? Similarly people asserting that they knew a murderer was an invisible force because they had a feeling inside and had conversations with said invisible force though of course no-one else can hear the replies... would again (I imagine) be laughed out of court and probably regarded as suspects but would most certainly not be regarded as having provided a reliable testimony. So I fail to see why courts using witnesses supports the defences so offered for Gods existence.

    And as blind pointed out above to ask Tekken to disprove God is akin to asking someone to disprove the existence of an invisible rock hidden somewhere on the planet. It can't be done... but that doesn't mean they are logically equal assumptions. EDIT: If you argue NewLearner taht God exists is a positive claim, then indeed the burden of proof lies with YOU not Tekkengod and to be honest I doubt your going to offer any objective evidence that holds up to critical analysis because if such evidence existed it would be a well known fact by now.

    Despite all this I don't think theists are stupid or that they have no reasons for believing or anything like that- I simply think they should admit that they are basing certain things on FAITH rather than objective evidence. Why is everyone suddenly so ashamed of having FAITH?
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2006
  2. WatchfulAbyss

    WatchfulAbyss Active Member


    I was just implying, "concrete" "undeniable" you know, the holy crap kind of evidence.......
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2006
  3. NewLearner

    NewLearner Valued Member

    Ckava, I have to disagree. When someone makes a claim that something is not, they need to prove it. When I say something is wrong or won't work in my profession, I am expected to prove it.

    I also think that if you read through the thread, I have said several times that it is nigh impossible to prove either side. I accept the idea of God because I see things and to me they make more sense that way. Because I start off with those assumptions, I end up believing or having faith in the God of the Bible.
     
  4. Socrastein

    Socrastein The Boxing Philosopher

    Capt Ann

    What part of my post did you find in error? The part about causality lacking on the quantum level, or the part about matter and energy popping in and out of existance?

    The Copenhagen interpretation of QM, which is widely accepted, if not the most accepted, holds that measurement outcomes of wave-particles are fundamentally indeterministic. They do not reflect a lack of knowledge, they are theoretically irreducible, and necessarily probabalistic.

    And on the quantum scale, virtual particles pop randomly into existence all the time, and pop right back out in a matter of time inversely proportional to the amount of energy they have. The more energy a virtual particle has when it comes into existence, the faster it disappears. Overall no violation of energy is occuring, the energy created is equal to the energy lost when the particles vanish, so there is no "net" change. However, the fact is that these particles can, do, and according to Heisenberg's uncertainty principal must pop in and out of existance, randomly. Surely you've heard of quantum 'foam'.

    You'll have to explain to me what I was wrong about, specifically. It doesn't seem very productive to say I'm wrong and then wait for AZ to come in and explain it for you.

    Newlearner

    I'd appreciate if you answered my post rather than shift the focus to issues of credentials. I don't care if you hold a PHD in biochemistry, you obviously are mistaken about evolution. I also don't care if you're a professor of physics at an esteemed university, I'd still suggest you do some reading on the basics of Big Bang cosmology. Similiarly, what does it matter my background? My claims hold up or fall apart on their own merit.
     
  5. CKava

    CKava Just one more thing... Supporter

    If we were to follow your logic it would mean we should consider any claim to be true until proved otherwise... even if it contests things like natural laws or common sense. This seems an absurd way to discuss things or to approach any subject. Every claim must be regarded as true until proved false... seems silly to me no matter what way I look at it.

    If I claimed I have Osama Bin Laden beside me right now in my house then it must be true until someone shows up searches my house and disproves it? Or at least it must be equally as valid as the counter claim that he is not in my house and there is no evidence that he is (and several reasons why he is not)?

    If people are allowed to make any claims then place the burden of disproving them on the other person then any discussion is pointless... are you going to go to the bother to prove Osama Bin Laden is not in my house?
     
  6. Capt Ann

    Capt Ann Valued Member

    This is the nature of a 'personal relationship' with God. When you get to meet Him, you will probably have another story, with something unique to you. It won't provide much 'proof' to me, but it will be enough to convince you.

    The part about causality lacking. Energy and matter don't 'pop in and out of existnce', either; energy and matter are different forms of the same 'stuff' and are still conserved.

    'Theoretically indeterministic' is the key. That means the theory can't predict an exact outcome. It is based on the limitations of our knowledge of the system AND our limitations in our ability to observe/measure without interacting with and affecting the system. Quantum wave equations represent a probabalistic mathematical model. Use a probablistic model, and you will get a probabalistic result.

    PS - just a side question - given that you hold that events are indeterminsitic on the quantum level, how (if at all) does this affect your view on the freedom of the human will and the ability to choose with/without absolute determinism?
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2006
  7. tekkengod

    tekkengod the MAP MP

    THANKYOU!!!!!! THERE Newlearner, now that the same argument is being made by other people using diffrent vocabulary and analogies, do you understand the point?

    I have to agree with Ckava there, all i really want is for people to admit that there are NO good reasons to believe what they believe, that they take it on faith

    "Theres no physical proof for what i believe by any stretch of the imaginaion, i base my belief by lack of negative proof. I believe this because i want to believe it" THAT is the sentence i would like theists to use in the future.

    Thankyou blind. again, learner, theres the same concept/argument made with a diffrent analogy with diffrent vocabulary by a diffrent person, i hope they conveyed the concept better than I did.
     
  8. tekkengod

    tekkengod the MAP MP

    LMAO!!!! :D
     
  9. Socrastein

    Socrastein The Boxing Philosopher

    I never said they were seperate things, perhaps I should have said energy-matter? Yes, the total energy of the universe is conserved, but virtual particles, for a very small period of time and in a very small amount DO 'borrow' from the energy of a vacuum and sponteneously form, only to vanish and 'return' the energy to the vacuum, with no net gain or loss.

    No, that's not the key. By theoretically indetermined, I didn't mean "Our best guess is that they're random". I meant that the scientific theory and math indicate that the functions are necessarily indetermined. Like I said, the Copenhagen interpretation posits that wave-particle functions break down randomly, not because we can't measure them accurately enough, but because they are random.

    There is no other possible model, they are fundamentally unpredictable.

    This isn't the only interpretation of the weirdness of QM of course, however it is the most widely accepted by scientists. If you wish to argue why, say, the many-worlds hypothesis is a more sound alternative, I'd be interested to hear. However, you don't seem to be arguing interpretations, you seem to think that I'm just flat out wrong, and this seems to indicate that you haven't studied the issue so much.

    It doesn't. Adding randomness to the free will equation does absolutely nothing for it. Free will requires determinism, and lucky for us, the indeterminacy of QM gets 'averaged out' on the macroscopic scale and we observe strict causality in our everday world. All attempts to factor in a scale of indeterminancy into arguments for incompatabilist free will are pitifully weak and bankrupt.
     
  10. Capt Ann

    Capt Ann Valued Member

    No, the mathematical model is a probabalistic one (e.g., see more rigorous approaches to Statistical Mechanics). If you start with a probablistic model, you will get a probablistic answer. That is why the mathematical model shows indeterminacy - it is incapabale of, unsuited for, and derived assuming you could not have determinacy.
     
  11. NewLearner

    NewLearner Valued Member

    Ckava, don't you understand that claims are being made on both sides? If the one claims it is impossible for there to be a god and the other claims there is a god, both sides are making a claim and thus should either prove them or not.

    Look back at my post to Blind:

    If Tekken's assertion were similiar to the second, then my response would be that proving that God exists is going to be nigh impossible and leave it there. But since Tekken's assertions are similiar to the first, then he can certainly spend the effort to prove what he can't prove before I would try to prove what I will not be able to prove.
     
  12. Socrastein

    Socrastein The Boxing Philosopher

    Capt Ann

    Like I said, according to Bohr and Heisenberg you can't have anything but a probabalistic model. Wave-particle functions aren't probabalistic and indetermined because we haven't developed the right formulas, or because we don't have accurate enough measuring devices. You keep attributing the apparent randomness to an incomplete model, to inadequate mathematics that can only probabalistically approximate. You are mistaken. The biggest point that Bohr and Heisenberg were trying to make was that we cannot have a deterministic model, because wavefunctions are fundamentally indeterministic.

    From Wikipedia Copenhagen Interpretation:

    The probability statements made by quantum mechanics are irreducible in the sense that they don't exclusively reflect our limited knowledge of some hidden variables. In classical physics, probabilities were used to describe the outcome of rolling dice, even though the process was thought to be deterministic. Probabilities were used to substitute for complete knowledge. By contrast, the Copenhagen interpretation holds that in quantum mechanics, measurement outcomes are fundamentally indeterministic.
     
  13. Strafio

    Strafio Trying again...

    I think the atheist assertion is that there's no reason to believe in God.
    I think there's a 'strong' atheism that says God cannot exist but no one's defending that here. All people are saying is that there are no objective reasons to believe in God, atleast not in the same way there are for scientific facts.

    So Homer, Soccy, TG etc, they all admit the possibility of there being God, but only the same way it's possible that the world's filled with pink faeries that disappear when you look at them or there's a mysterious space cat that has an orbit that leaves it always on the other side of the sun to us (so we can't see it).

    Except maybe Homer...
    He'd point out that atleast the pink faeries and space cat were coherent pictures! :D
     
  14. Capt Ann

    Capt Ann Valued Member

    Soc, I think a lot of our differences are in semantics. I haven't studied QM rigorously for going on 20 years now, but what I remember and loved the most about it was the absolute glory of the elegance of the mathematics: to take an infinite number of states and derive physically meaningful results by expressing them as a probabilistic model. If you ever get the chance to read some very rigorous explanations, and you are seriously bored, and you have lots of time for some really cool math, see if you can read up Bose-Einstein statistics, and derive most of classical thermodynamics from there.

    I wouldn't want to say that the Wikipedia article is 'wrong', so much as it just doesn't do justice to the whole story. The mathematical models are (from the design) probabilistic. A good mathematical model is only as good as how closely it predicts the behavior of actual systems. Whether probability represents the actual 'physical' condition of the universe and the nature of 'the way things are' or not, the mathematical models have been and are being used to predict measurable results. Therefore, the mathematical model is 'valid' for making scientific predictions, within the range of the initial assumptions and their limitations.

    15 to 25 years ago, scads of folks were jumping on the bandwagon trying to 'prove' Zen by appealing to QM. This was an obvious (to me) example of trying to apply mathematical equations and physical models beyond the reaches of their applicability, and trying to assign a metaphysical interpretation where it wasn't really justified. The same was done with Einstein's theory of relativity (and trying to apply it to personal ethics and the meaning of truth) a generation earlier. From what I know of QM, and my understanding of the derivation (and range of applicability) of the mathematical models, using it to deny causality is equally untenable. In fact, you could consider using QM models to 'prove' probabilistic dispersion as the mathematical equivalent of 'begging the question' in logic.

    I put in a PM to AZeitung, asking him to please review my thoughts and logic. I know a lot can change in 20 years. (I am very confident that my answers were correct 20 years ago :) ). I am not above/below admitting it, if I am wrong. I'll post back with what I hear from him, if/when he responds.
     
  15. NewLearner

    NewLearner Valued Member

    If that is there view, I don't have a problem with that at all. That is not at all the impression I received from Tekken.
     
  16. Socrastein

    Socrastein The Boxing Philosopher

    Thank you Capt Ann. You made a detailed response, and that was all I was asking for :) While you're waiting on what AZ has to say, I'll dig through my library and try and see what Michio Kaku, Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene, Weinberg, and others have to say. Perhaps my memory is fuzzy. At least you have the excuse of 20 years :p It has been maybe 2 years since I rigorously studied this stuff :eek:
     
  17. Strafio

    Strafio Trying again...

    The problem is, from the view "there are no objective reasons to believe in God" they infer "Christians therefore have no reasons for their beliefs and must be irrational."

    I agree with the no objective reasons bit but not 100% sure about the inference...
     
  18. tekkengod

    tekkengod the MAP MP

    of course thats my view, which is why i was open to any evidence that could be provided. didn't you see my above theistic statement proposal.
     

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