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Even if theism is a failure, it's still superior to atheism
RE: Even if theism is a failure, it's still superior to atheism
(October 27, 2022 at 10:26 pm)LinuxGal Wrote: If omniscient, then God has perfect foreknowledge of his own actions. 
Perfect foreknowledge precludes the ability to choose something different than what he knows he will choose.
This cancels out his omnipotence.
If God is strictly outside of the universe, then he cannot act on the universe, since any action that occurs to the universe is automatically part of the universe.

I literally cringe whenever I read very short posts like these boldly claiming that theism is incoherent, did it really happen ? that some guy casually trying to look like a smartass managed such an incredible feat... Do you know that thousands of brilliant atheist philosophers through history would sell both of their kidneys to find such an argument, and that you'll look like an idiot if you try to present some crappy pseudo-argument that pops up in google search whenever one types the keywords argument against theism ?

I'll give you some time to do three things : 

1/ find out what's wrong with your cute attempt to short-circuit theism, even though I'm 100% sure it wasn't even your attempt.
2/ After completing step 1, humbly explain to us that this was a brain fart (or that you picked the wrong website to copypasta from), and that you were mistaken.
3/ leave these discussions to people who are capable of heavy thinking and, more importantly, people who understand that there are no knockdown arguments against theism.

If you can't complete step 1, then you should seriously consider the possibility that you really are an idiot.

(October 13, 2022 at 7:48 pm)polymath257 Wrote: Well, the argument is that the complexity is such that no natural system could produce what we observe

That's not at all the argument. Your formulation above in bold is clearly a negative assertion, and negative assertions generally can't be proven. All variants of the design arguments are either analogical (e.g. the universe is analogous to intelligently designed machines + the analogy is strong enough to warrant a designer of the universe) or inductive (the designer hypothesis is a better explanation of available data than all competing hypotheses).

You're also making the implicit assumption that natural selection and the design hypothesis/theism are incompatible, needless to say that you need to provide very good justification of such an assumption.

(October 13, 2022 at 7:48 pm)polymath257 Wrote: In general, giving evidence of design isn't as easy as many seem to think. Among other things, it requires knowing enough of what can happen *without* intelligent interference to justify the necessity of such interference. On the other hand, it is often found that things that initially *look* designed can actually be the result of natural processes.

So the upshot is that the 'look around' argument simply doesn't get to the conclusion.

I can say the exact same thing about evidence of walls existing, or any other basic belief that we acquire through perception. In short, your objections to the appearance of design invariably lead to skepticism.

And, again, you're assuming that something being the result of natural processes explains away design. You need to actually justify the explaining away -the option of guided evolution is always available to the theist, so you basically did nothing to refute the design argument.

(October 13, 2022 at 7:48 pm)polymath257 Wrote:
Quote:Perhaps it's better to use an analogy here : let's say you have a dozen of highly intelligent AI robots. These robots started investigating their own origins and eventually ended up tracing the entire history of technological progress made by mankind. One day, one robot suggested that : we have a lot of evidence of less intelligent machines, we found ((fossils)) of analog computers, calculators, floppy disks with laughably limited storage, and countless other machines in nature. It seems we can explain our origin or genesis without appeal to some intelligence called "human". Now, it's not hard to see that something is wrong here.

Yes, and what is wrong is that AI robots do not reproduce with mutations and are not subject to natural selection.

So, your only objection to my parody analogy is that AI robots don't reproduce ...........? We already have self-replicating malware that can modify its behavior to avoid detection (look up polymorphic virus), does that mean such malware doesn't warrant a programmer who wrote the malware ?
 
and let's say we managed to produce AI robots that can reproduce and can evolve through natural selection, does that mean we never existed .......?

(October 13, 2022 at 7:48 pm)polymath257 Wrote: Actually, I would say that the existence of something is ultimately determined by whether it can be detected in principle. So, yes, the detection of the wall through the senses is *precisely* why I believe they exist. It is part of the definition I use for 'existence'.

And your definition is plainly ridiculous. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. That something is undetectable just means we can't detect it, and that empirical observation isn't enough to justify the assertion that it exists.
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Messages In This Thread
RE: Even if theism is a failure, it's still superior to atheism - by R00tKiT - November 5, 2022 at 6:55 pm

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