Add a Comment
Email This
Statistics
RE: I will bite, a defense of sorts
Begging the question, as I understand it, is that the person has assumed the antecedent of what he is trying to prove. What has he assumed here? He states quite clearly that there is evidence for the existence of entities which defy scientific proof.
The assumption here, I felt was not the presentation of eye witness accounts as evidence, but the claim of existence of 'ample evidence' of entities which have no scientific basis. I was challenging people to either produce some rational grounds for faith.
The author simply implies his position is prima facie valid without argument. I do not believe one can rationally ground faith in the existence of entities which have no basis in the realm of public verification in nothing more than the argument from popularity. That is what I found question begging.
The author claims that his explanation of such hypothetical entities, that they do exist, required fewer suppositions than the conclusion that millions of people are insufficiently incredulous. The premise that verbal accounts of encounters with angels which fail to present themselves publicly is a prima facie argument for their existence begs his conclusion that such evidence is ample enough to place the burden of proof upon any who would disagree. After all, my stated point was for any defender of the faith to rationally ground it. The existence of an unseen, unexperienced 'spiritual' world would appear to me to be much more complex and require more suppositions than the explanation that some people are liars and neurotic. At least, I need some argument to show why the burden falls to me.
You are correct, that up to this point such entities have failed to stand up to scientific scrutiny. But, is it possible that some of these phenomena are sensitive to the expectations of the observer, e.g. placebo effect? I agree that Occam's Razor would tend to discount such entities, but we, as of this point, don't know everything and can't measure it either. (See this thread.) So, I'm going to withhold judgement.
My response is that you ought not and, in fact, do not withold judgement. Many, I would claim the vast majority of, advocates of the spiritual claim there are ethical implications of their metaphysical assertions. Either you find the claims sufficiently weighty to act as if they are true or you do not. I am assuming you do not from what you've written; keeping an open mind is good though.
Me:I agree that I have no evidence that God is subject to physics; I have no evidence of God whatsoever. It is inappropriate to speak of the application of physical laws to fiction.
You:This is very dangerous ground. In this statement, you have essentially said that a null result implies a negative result. Simply put, just because there is no evidence of a something, does not mean it does not exist. Science can say nothing as to the existence or the nature of the Divine because, almost by definition, the Divine must exist outside of the physical realm, and science deals strictly with the physical. No more, no less.
From what grounds can I rationally, scientifically begin to make claims on the nature of that which is by definition unexperienced and if I accept your definition of the Divine, probably unable to be experienced?
Any suppositions about the nature of a deity presume one exists. The truth value of any existential statement regarding properties of an entity which does not exist is false. Translated into English, all existential propositions begin, "There is at least one thing such that ..." Any statement I might make about the King of France's haircut is false.
The lack of any evidence or experience regarding some entity's properties discharges one to say nothing at all about them. Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent. It is epistemically invalid to discuss properties which are beyond ken; as I defined religious faith, all deities fit this category. Should you disagree, I will invite you to produce a deity that is otherwise.
For the most part, you are correct. The problem here is that this is a problem that has existed for millenia. The Greeks struggled with it. Their solution: the Prime Mover, the initial impetus for everything else. Unfortunately, this hasn't been resolved. We don't know what came before the Big Bang, and, as far as we know, we cannot know what came before. So, what started it all? It is an unanswerable question, and arguing about infinite regress, while a valid criticism, is going to get you nowhere.
I hoped my point was even plainer than pointing out the logical difficulties of infinite regression. If we can logically accept that an unexperienced Prime Mover need not have a prior impetus why can we not hold the same for everything else at some unexperienced point in time?
But, back to my point, all systems of logic are incomplete, as proved by Gödel. This essentially means that within a system of logic there are statements that can be made that meet all of the axioms of the system, but that cannot be proven by the system. Thus, while it is very tempting to put approach the concept of the Divine from a logical perspective, it is one of those statements that can be neither proven nor disproven using logic.
This is not completely correct. If the concept of the Divine is internally contradictory, and I believe it is on many points, logic can dispense with the concept easily. Logic alone will not be sufficient to prove even the existence of apples, much less a deity, but it is sufficient to disprove concepts which contain both some premise and its negation. So if some argument for the existence of the Divine rests implicitly upon either invalid or unsound argument, at the least, that argument can be rejected. The argument from design is one such argument that may be rejected for numerous flaws.
RE: I will bite, a defense of sorts
You beat me to the punch, but did an excellent job, so I can't complain.
Another good example to add to your list of things not logical is the ability to mathematically prove that .999... = 1:
1 = (1/3)*3 = (.333...)*3 = .999...
Sure, they are approximately the same, but they aren't supposed to be equal. So much for pythagoreanism.
I'd also like to add that the concept of faith shouldn't seem that odd, even to the atheist. Faith is an essential part of any action, as perfect knowledge is beyond the grasp of everyone. Of course, there are statistical principles (such as Bayes' Theorem) that outline ways to take a best guess at what is likely and not so likely, but these do not limit the choices to what is scientific. Specifically, there are many instances in which determining what is probable relies wholly on unscientific things like "feelings."
Then again, principles of science aren't necessarily excluded from religious decision making. Alma 32 in the Book of Mormon contains a great analogy of the process of an idea becoming knowledge and how faith is integral in that conversion.
RSS
RE: I will bite, a defense of sorts
I find you have several good points, and, in general, I find your argument compelling. However, there are some things that I think are flawed.
you've begged the entire issue
Begging the question, as I understand it, is that the person has assumed the antecedent of what he is trying to prove. What has he assumed here? He states quite clearly that there is evidence for the existence of entities which defy scientific proof. Now, I'll admit that the "evidence" he is talking about is eye-witness accounts, so that automatically makes them less trustworthy. However, there is no assumption present.
Either they exist and you have some means by which you know it, in which case the scientific basis is given by the fact of your knowing, or they are speculative, in which case Occam's Razor would tend to dispense with said entities.... My reason for disbelieving the supernatural is lack of experience, the inability of others to reproduce their experience and my own experience of people who tell untruths.
You are correct, that up to this point such entities have failed to stand up to scientific scrutiny. But, is it possible that some of these phenomena are sensitive to the expectations of the observer, e.g. placebo effect? I agree that Occam's Razor would tend to discount such entities, but we, as of this point, don't know everything and can't measure it either. (See this thread.) So, I'm going to withhold judgement.
I agree that I have no evidence that God is subject to physics; I have no evidence of God whatsoever. It is inappropriate to speak of the application of physical laws to fiction.
This is very dangerous ground. In this statement, you have essentially said that a null result implies a negative result. Simply put, just because there is no evidence of a something, does not mean it does not exist. Science can say nothing as to the existence or the nature of the Divine because, almost by definition, the Divine must exist outside of the physical realm, and science deals strictly with the physical. No more, no less.
The fact that your argument ... leads to an infinite regression of proof should also sound an alarm to you.... If at least one thing can exist which is not created, the burden lies upon you to prove why matter is not one such thing.... The regress is the hallmark of invalid logic ...
For the most part, you are correct. The problem here is that this is a problem that has existed for millenia. The Greeks struggled with it. Their solution: the Prime Mover, the initial impetus for everything else. Unfortunately, this hasn't been resolved. We don't know what came before the Big Bang, and, as far as we know, we cannot know what came before. So, what started it all? It is an unanswerable question, and arguing about infinite regress, while a valid criticism, is going to get you nowhere.
The problem with these arguments is that they are bound by logic. As a mathematician and physicist, I can appreciate the rigor, but there are limits to logic. Zeno's Paradox is a good example. The only way out of the paradox is to go outside of the confining logic and make a leap of intuition and come up with the concept of a limit. The method of exhaustion is an early example. Newton's method for generating a derivative, is another good example. But, back to my point, all systems of logic are incomplete, as proved by Gödel. This essentially means that within a system of logic there are statements that can be made that meet all of the axioms of the system, but that cannot be proven by the system. Thus, while it is very tempting to put approach the concept of the Divine from a logical perspective, it is one of those statements that can be neither proven nor disproven using logic.
View Full Discussion