The absurd need for logical proofs for God

[R00tKiT]

Mostly harmless is not harmless. None of which demonstrates any use for these viruses that make up some 8% of our genome. So useless and worse than useless.

It's not hard to find studies showing potential roles of these retroviruses, here:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26818265/
I already told you, and you're not listening; saying that something in our body is useless is always an appeal to ignorance, unless you figure out some unprecedented way to establish the uselessness of a body part.

Neither does it mean that it is there. You know how the Burden of Proof works. He who makes the absurd claim that this apparently functionless sand grain is Designed gets to provide the evidence. Have fun with that.

Apparently you're unable to draw the distinction between designed and useful. Design doesn't logically imply usefulness. Many chemical elements, for example, were around us for aeons of time and remained useless until very recently.  Lithium wasn't discoverd until 1817, and didn't really "become useful" until we started manufacturing batteries.
So, the function of something out there in nature largely depends on culture, technological advancement, etc. All of them are human-related processes.

Efficiency is also a matter of competence. Only a moron makes a pocket watch with a mast and rudder. Design is easy to spot by what it isn't.

The fraction of the universe that intelligent life can survive in is so vanishingly small that only a lack-wit would have built it that way, and only the heirs to the kingdom of imbeciles would worship it.

This is your second or third appeal to ignorance. Life outside of Earth is an active area of research, meanwhile you already make assertions about it.

I'm not instructing any deity. I'd have to believe in them to do that. I'm simply pointing out that a deity doesn't need anything as sloppy as physical constants. A Designed universe doesn't need gravity. Things fall because The Designer Wills them to. All arguments from fine-tuning and design fail because they explicitly admit to physics and biochemistry that no competent deity woud be caught dead soiling its hands with.

What do you mean by "as sloppy as physical constants" ? How exactly do you manage to emit judgments on how the universe is built ? And what's exactly sloppy about things falling ?

---

Evolution couldn't have occurred without fine-tuning. Natural selection depends on a large set of chemical and biological processes that can't be ascribed to coincidence.

Stop lying. We live in a universe without fine tuning, yet we still managee to evolve.

Right.. lucky you

[Angrboda]

. . . .

Are you going to answer my question, Klor? Did you think up this bollocks about evolution requiring fine-tuning all on your own, or are you repeating something you read or heard?

[Mister Agenda]

I have noted that a universe in which the natural conditions allow life, however rarely, belongs to the set of conceivable universes that don't require an omnipotent Designer to explain, what need does an omnipotent being have for a universe that allows for the possibility of life? It could put us in the middle of space or on the surface of a black hole and we'd do fine if an omnipotent being wanted it that way.

[Spongebob]

Hi there,

One objection nonreligious people usually raise is why a deity would communicate through prophets altogether, or just leave signs. And at face value the objection looks serious, a supposed deity knows epistemology and, a fortiori, what would convince each and every individual to follow some doctrine. But further thought reveals that this is exactly what we have. People are generally more convinced and emotionally moved by models, idols, celebrities, than by dry, heavy readings. A human model is more appealing to human beings than, say, the most impressive fossil finding supporting the occurence of some miracle. And this is exactly what we have, human models throughout history guiding human beings on the right path.

When an atheist asks about evidence, his question entails that all what surrounds him and all what he heard about, like the existence of claims of prophecy throughout history, are not evidence. And when he asks about a logical proof, he ignores the fact that logical proofs in this context only make sense to talk about in some universally valid system of axioms, which doesn't exist. To clarify that, an impressive result in Euclidian geometry, say, for example, the Pythagorean theorem, entails less truths than the five postulates of Euclid. Namely, you can't reach Euclid's postulates based on the Pythagorean theorem.

Therefore, it's not a problem that there is no watertight, universally valid deductive proof for God. The underlying intuition is that God is "too much" to be deduced from a fixed set of axioms chosen by human brains. The only possible evidence for God is of inferential value. Inference by definition seeks the bigger scheme of things based on a small sample, while deduction starts by an already complete list of axioms, choices, hypotheses, etc.

And it's clear that one cannot prepare an exhaustive, universally agreed-upon list of independent axioms, the coherence of which is verifiable, to deduce the most complete being conceivable.

On a side note I would like to hear someone's thoughts on the equivalence between the existence of other minds and the existence of God. A result established recently by Plantinga and others. If one has enough "belief" to think there is an outside world and creatures like himself, this exact inference from a sample of the size of a singleton (only himself) to the entire human population is what he should apply to the orderly things around him to reach a supreme being.

And if one is stubborn enough to reject any inferential value from what we see, then he must accept the unbearable cost: either deny the existence of other minds altogether, i.e. endorse hard solipsism just to deny the existence of God. Or hypocritically acknowledge other minds while rejecting the existence of God.

H, Klorophyll.  There are a lot of ways to respond to this, but my first intuition is to just as the most simple question that this line of thinking begs.  If I accept your argument as valid, this still leaves me with an incredibly profound problem.  Which god do I now choose?  And upon what basis do I make this choice?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

@Klorophyll

Evolution couldn't have occurred without fine-tuning. Natural selection depends on a large set of chemical and biological processes that can't be ascribed to coincidence.

You have that exactly backwards - populations of organisms evolve biological processes to suit their environment (this is why the Negev Desert doesn’t have a population of polar bears).

What you’ve done is presumed that environments were deliberately designed to be fit for predetermined groups of organisms. That’s not how it works.

Formally, this is what you’ve done:

1. If God designed the universe, then human beings would exist.
2. Human beings exist.
3. Therefore, God designed the universe.

See the problem?

Boru

[Simon Moon]

You have that exactly backwards - populations of organisms evolve biological processes to suit their environment (this is why the Negev Desert doesn’t have a population of polar bears).

What you’ve done is presumed that environments were deliberately designed to be fit for predetermined groups of organisms. That’s not how it works.

Formally, this is what you’ve done:

1. If God designed the universe, then human beings would exist.
2. Human beings exist.
3. Therefore, God designed the universe.

See the problem?

Boru

He hasn't seen the problem yet, not sure this simple, and well stated, explanation will help...

That's the problem with seeing the world through 'god glasses'. In this example, obvious circular reasoning, looks rational to the one wearing the glasses.

[Abaddon_ire]

Hi there,

One objection nonreligious people usually raise is why a deity would communicate through prophets altogether, or just leave signs. And at face value the objection looks serious, a supposed deity knows epistemology and, a fortiori, what would convince each and every individual to follow some doctrine. But further thought reveals that this is exactly what we have. People are generally more convinced and emotionally moved by models, idols, celebrities, than by dry, heavy readings. A human model is more appealing to human beings than, say, the most impressive fossil finding supporting the occurence of some miracle. And this is exactly what we have, human models throughout history guiding human beings on the right path.

When an atheist asks about evidence, his question entails that all what surrounds him and all what he heard about, like the existence of claims of prophecy throughout history, are not evidence. And when he asks about a logical proof, he ignores the fact that logical proofs in this context only make sense to talk about in some universally valid system of axioms, which doesn't exist. To clarify that, an impressive result in Euclidian geometry, say, for example, the Pythagorean theorem, entails less truths than the five postulates of Euclid. Namely, you can't reach Euclid's postulates based on the Pythagorean theorem.

Therefore, it's not a problem that there is no watertight, universally valid deductive proof for God. The underlying intuition is that God is "too much" to be deduced from a fixed set of axioms chosen by human brains. The only possible evidence for God is of inferential value. Inference by definition seeks the bigger scheme of things based on a small sample, while deduction starts by an already complete list of axioms, choices, hypotheses, etc.

And it's clear that one cannot prepare an exhaustive, universally agreed-upon list of independent axioms, the coherence of which is verifiable, to deduce the most complete being conceivable.

On a side note I would like to hear someone's thoughts on the equivalence between the existence of other minds and the existence of God. A result established recently by Plantinga and others. If one has enough "belief" to think there is an outside world and creatures like himself, this exact inference from a sample of the size of a singleton (only himself) to the entire human population is what he should apply to the orderly things around him to reach a supreme being.

And if one is stubborn enough to reject any inferential value from what we see, then he must accept the unbearable cost: either deny the existence of other minds altogether, i.e. endorse hard solipsism just to deny the existence of God. Or hypocritically acknowledge other minds while rejecting the existence of God.

H, Klorophyll.  There are a lot of ways to respond to this, but my first intuition is to just as the most simple question that this line of thinking begs.  If I accept your argument as valid, this still leaves me with an incredibly profound problem.  Which god do I now choose?  And upon what basis do I make this choice?

And there's the problem. Klorophyl want's you to believe his god and no other. 

What he fails to understand is that the same argument applies to whatever deity, and there is no evidence for any of them None.

You don't have to take my word for it. Ask him to present evidence for his god or any other god. He won't because he can't.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

You have that exactly backwards - populations of organisms evolve biological processes to suit their environment (this is why the Negev Desert doesn’t have a population of polar bears).

What you’ve done is presumed that environments were deliberately designed to be fit for predetermined groups of organisms. That’s not how it works.

Formally, this is what you’ve done:

1. If God designed the universe, then human beings would exist.
2. Human beings exist.
3. Therefore, God designed the universe.

See the problem?

Boru

He hasn't seen the problem yet, not sure this simple, and well stated, explanation will help...

That's the problem with seeing the world through 'god glasses'. In this example, obvious circular reasoning, looks rational to the one wearing the glasses.

I suspect you're right. He'll reply with the same fallacious arguments (not realizing that they're fallacious) and probably call me 'buddy', 'pal' or 'son'.

Boru

[arewethereyet]

He hasn't seen the problem yet, not sure this simple, and well stated, explanation will help...

That's the problem with seeing the world through 'god glasses'. In this example, obvious circular reasoning, looks rational to the one wearing the glasses.

I suspect you're right. He'll reply with the same fallacious arguments (not realizing that they're fallacious) and probably call me 'buddy', 'pal' or 'son'.

Boru

Calling you those things should really make you sit up and notice.  Just as much as Drich calling people "Sport" does.  

<eyeroll>

[Nay_Sayer]

@Klorophyll

Evolution couldn't have occurred without fine-tuning. Natural selection depends on a large set of chemical and biological processes that can't be ascribed to coincidence.

You have that exactly backwards - populations of organisms evolve biological processes to suit their environment (this is why the Negev Desert doesn’t have a population of polar bears).

What you’ve done is presumed that environments were deliberately designed to be fit for predetermined groups of organisms. That’s not how it works.

Formally, this is what you’ve done:

1. If God designed the universe, then human beings would exist.
2. Human beings exist.
3. Therefore, God designed the universe.

See the problem?

Boru

Seems logical to me, then again, when I phrased it like this

1. If FSM designed the universe, then human beings would exist.
2. Human beings exist.
3. Therefore, FSM designed the universe.

Suddenly Phyll (I call em Phyll cuz were buddies) stopped replying to me and ran for the hills.

Isn't that weird?
RAmen.