Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: March 29, 2024, 2:47 am

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
"Knockdown" Argument Against Naturalism
#11
RE: "Knockdown" Argument Against Naturalism
(January 2, 2014 at 1:56 pm)FreeTony Wrote: In my post I didn't say that the supernatural doesn't exist. I'm saying it is impossible to demonstrate that it does. I don't think I am making any assumptions about the existence of a supernatural realm.

The list doesn't make a lot of sense. Theists tend to do this as they are not generally interested in finding out what is/isn't true, rather they try to justify their own beliefs in any way they can. The list is a long argument from ignorance. "If you can't explain everything on my list, we must assume the supernatural exists".

I agree, "supernatural" is a totally undefined, senseless concept. I would say that all ideas and beliefs, being determined by time and energy, chance and necessity, are oftentimes unjustifiable at a fundamental level.. I just don't see how inserting God into the mix solves anything. But then of course, he might assert that Theism and Naturalism are both equally borne out of unjustified assumptions (or rather, theists are justified if God exists).
Reply
#12
RE: "Knockdown" Argument Against Naturalism
(January 2, 2014 at 2:00 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:
(January 2, 2014 at 1:56 pm)FreeTony Wrote: In my post I didn't say that the supernatural doesn't exist. I'm saying it is impossible to demonstrate that it does. I don't think I am making any assumptions about the existence of a supernatural realm.

The list doesn't make a lot of sense. Theists tend to do this as they are not generally interested in finding out what is/isn't true, rather they try to justify their own beliefs in any way they can. The list is a long argument from ignorance. "If you can't explain everything on my list, we must assume the supernatural exists".

I agree, "supernatural" is a totally undefined, senseless concept. I would say that all ideas and beliefs, being determined by time and energy, chance and necessity, are oftentimes unjustifiable at a fundamental level.. I just don't see how inserting God into the mix solves anything. But then of course, he might assert that Theism and Naturalism are both equally borne out of unjustified assumptions (or rather, theists are justified if God exists).

It's all just shifting the burden of proof. I lack belief in the supernatural, but I also can lack belief in the claim "The supernatural does NOT exist". I'm therefore not assuming anything in regards to the supernatural.

So so many people can't get their head around "I don't believe claim A" is not the same as "I believe claim B" where A and B are the only options.
Reply
#13
RE: "Knockdown" Argument Against Naturalism
(January 2, 2014 at 2:32 pm)FreeTony Wrote: It's all just shifting the burden of proof. I lack belief in the supernatural, but I also can lack belief in the claim "The supernatural does NOT exist". I'm therefore not assuming anything in regards to the supernatural.

So so many people can't get their head around "I don't believe claim A" is not the same as "I believe claim B" where A and B are the only options.

Whereas we find the idea of "supernatural" to be a meaningless concept, do you think "natural" is too ambiguous? Could this be where their arbitrary distinctions are born from?
Reply
#14
RE: "Knockdown" Argument Against Naturalism
I completely agree that the natural is too vague and miracles is just another word for confirmation bias (only if it's really rare and really good for me, is the honest way to put it).

Supernatural is just the tv show with the really hot guys. I believe in them!
Reply
#15
RE: "Knockdown" Argument Against Naturalism
(January 2, 2014 at 1:19 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:


What a wall of text!!! O.o

I didn't get to watch the video, but it reminds me of one of Dennett's words: deepity.
Your brother appears to say many deepities, but they all amount to air. Or, in the Game of Thrones wording, words are wind.
He talks too much while saying nothing. A standard tactic to get the other party to just give up....

I tend to be the sort of person who sums up every text into the bare minimum... making me a very un-verbose writer.
So, from all those things your brother wrote, I kept: abstract thinking leads to the existence of abstracts which lead to the existence of something beyond the natural... and the typical fine tuning argument -.-'
Wrong and wrong.

Humans have believed in deities for thousands of years. Way back then, the fine tuning argument wasn't available, so that's not a valid reason to start believing in them.... even if the argument was valid, which it isn't.
Humans didn't arrive at deities through the notion that their heads could think up abstract ideas, so that is also an invalid way of getting there.
Try again, bro! Tongue
How did mankind arrive at the "knowledge" that any god exists?
How did the ancient egyptians arrive at the "knowledge" that all their gods exist?
How did the classical greeks arrive at the "knowledge" that their pantheon exists?
How did the ancient assirians arrive at the "knowledge" of the existence of their pantheon?
How did the jews arrive at the "knowledge" of the existence of their god? (do note that this "knowledge" appeared quite some time after some of the previous peoples...)

How does this jive with the christian god?

Finally, the mere requirement of belief lends the notion of god no credence whatsoever.
Reply
#16
RE: "Knockdown" Argument Against Naturalism
(January 2, 2014 at 2:57 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: Whereas we find the idea of "supernatural" to be a meaningless concept, do you think "natural" is too ambiguous? Could this be where their arbitrary distinctions are born from?

With these conceptual ideas that Theists come up with, I find it only makes any sense when you/they try and give a practical example of what they are talking about, rather than just writing sentences that mean nothing. Like the neutron example I gave. Longwinded waffle is very tedious and rarely worth reading.

It's not about understanding the universe better, it's about them reinforcing their beliefs in any way they can.
Reply
#17
RE: "Knockdown" Argument Against Naturalism



I'm just going to voice my comments in no particular order without quoting the original.

First off, nature does not imply randomness. Natural processes are stochastic, that is, they combine lawful, ordered behaviors, and random behaviors. Thus to say that rationality, and the hypotheses derived from rationality are the product of randomness is incorrect in at least three aspects.

First, the laws of nature are possessed of symmetry of action, which, as proved by Noether's theorem, means that their action will result in laws of conservation (such as conservation of momentum). The consequence of this is that the laws of nature will result in lawlike behaviors. This violates the assumption that the effects of natural law are random.

Secondly, the stochastic behavior of natural processes permits the phenomenon of self-emergent order in natural systems (magnetic polarization being a prominent example). Thus, since even random natural processes can give rise to order, to suggest that all nature and rationality are necessarily the result of randomness is false.

Third, evolution is not a random process as natural selection itself is not random, but is ordered and given direction by the relationship of the instrumental utility of the phenotype of biological beings with respect to the useful resources of the environment in terms of extracting useful work in the form of reproducing copies of itself. (In other words, how "fit" for the environment a particular variation is determines whether or not that "type" will succeed or not; the match between the type and its environment is not random.) Religious people often get confused on this point because they're distracted by the fact that evolution depends on random mutations, and they infer from this that evolution is therefore a random process. It is not, because it combines non-random and random processes, it too is stochastic, not random, and it too can result in forms of self-emergent order, possibly including rationality.

Your explanation states that because naturalism entails atheism, but atheism does not entail naturalism, that therefore naturalism is the stronger hypothesis. Hypotheses aren't ranked according to the quality of "strength," and to the best of my knowledge there is no meaningful interpretation of the concept of strength with regard to hypotheses and proposition. What there is, however, is the property of scope, being the size of the class of things described and explained by the hypothesis or theory. For example, a theory of everything (TOE) would have greater scope than either a theory of relativity or of quantum mechanics, as it would describe both the big and the small, whereas the others only describe the big or the small. As a result of the entailment, naturalism would have greater scope than atheism, which is obvious. A theory or hypothesis having greater scope does not in itself imply it has greater validity, and thus naturalism isn't more true because it has greater scope.

As noted, evolution can give rise to order, and thus rationality isn't necessarily random, nor is its likelihood of arriving at the truth therefore necessarily random. What it is, is imperfect. Rationality cannot guarantee that its conclusions are correct, but it can increase the probability of its conclusions being correct by applying principles and processes which it has discovered and verified to be orderly and have lawlike behavior, to develop ordered and lawful predictions of probable character.

Your brother's argument is a variant of the argument from rationality, and there is a considerable body of literature on this apologetic argument. You might want to research the pre-existing responses to that argument before re-engaging your brother on his points and his version of it.


[Image: extraordinarywoo-sig.jpg]
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  [Serious] An Argument Against Hedonistic Moral Realism SenseMaker007 25 2866 June 19, 2019 at 7:21 am
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  Argument against Intelligent Design Jrouche 27 3065 June 2, 2019 at 5:04 pm
Last Post: GUBU
  The Argument Against God's Existence From God's Imperfect Choice Edwardo Piet 53 7907 June 4, 2018 at 2:06 pm
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  The Objective Moral Values Argument AGAINST The Existence Of God Edwardo Piet 58 13612 May 2, 2018 at 2:06 pm
Last Post: Amarok
  The argument against "evil", theists please come to the defense. Mystic 158 67825 December 29, 2017 at 7:21 pm
Last Post: Minimalist
  Your position on naturalism robvalue 125 16249 November 26, 2016 at 4:00 am
Last Post: Ignorant
  2 Birds, 1 Stone: An argument against free will and Aquinas' First Way Mudhammam 1 1147 February 20, 2016 at 8:02 am
Last Post: ignoramus
  Presumption of naturalism Captain Scarlet 18 3524 September 15, 2015 at 10:49 am
Last Post: robvalue
  An argument against God Mystic 37 8690 October 20, 2014 at 3:31 pm
Last Post: TreeSapNest
  On naturalism and consciousness FallentoReason 291 43639 September 15, 2014 at 9:26 pm
Last Post: dissily mordentroge



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)