RE: Deism for non-believers
June 10, 2012 at 5:04 pm
(This post was last modified: June 10, 2012 at 5:11 pm by Skepsis.)
(June 10, 2012 at 5:35 am)FallentoReason Wrote: I see it the same way as when people say life most likely exists on other planets because there's billions upon billions of planets out there. The probability that there is life then becomes rather high. My scale I believe has heaps of definitions of gods that don't contradict reality, which in turn means that one of them could eventually exist. Am I being fallacious without knowing it?
Yes, yes you are. I won't be able to tell you the type of fallacy that you are commiting, because I'm not a logician; however, I can tel you you're problem and where I feel, logically, you went astray:
You basically equivocate the claim "It is likely that there exists X because of the overwhelmingly large quantity of hanes for X to exist."
With something like "It is likely that X exists because of the overwhelming amount of possible and plausible varients of X that I can imagine."
The difference being that scientists can predict and measure the chances of there being life on other planets through probability, etc. We can use a valid real way to measure the chances.
You propose a near infinite amount of plausible Gods, yet there is no reason to say that any one of those Gods is any more likely that the last, as they are all separate from each other probability wise.
To make this a tad more cognizant, think now of an infinite # of plausible universe-creating unicorns. Any one unicorn isn't any more likely than another because each individal unicorn must be independently verified.
All in all, this means that, regardless of the concept, what makes things more probable is the evidence we have for those things. We have evidence that we base our statistics on when trying to guess whether or not other life exists, but nothing for Gods (or unicorns).
Quote:I agree that evidence is necessary to be able to come to a conclusion that something is true. When you say the evidence has to be based on reality, do you mean it in a material way? Because plausible gods that are immaterial by definition can't be shown to exist through material means.
I think evidence must be based on reality in the same way that mathematics is based on reality and then abstracted.
2+2=4 is quite the claim, but is ultimately based on reality.
There can be arguments that take into account the neccesity of a God that I would consider as evidence, if they were at all valid.
Now that I think about it, is a God plausible if he is immaterial? Because we don't know if a being without any matter is even possible.
(June 10, 2012 at 11:22 am)Taqiyya Mockingbird Wrote:(June 10, 2012 at 11:11 am)Ace Otana Wrote: Stephen Hawking goes into it pretty well, you should watch his vid. Not everything requires a cause. Not everything needs nor has a purpose, not everything has a 'why' to it.
i don't understand why so many fail to see this as self-evident, and the only explanation I can see is willful ignorance.
Most people don't intuit things of that nature or caliber.
Quantum mechanics aren't something you just know from birth, and in any case most people end up, sadly, born into a world of religion where pastors scream the need for a cause from the pulpit to ward away any evil nonbeliever that may try to tempt his pure-as-white-snow congregation (who disavow Jewish people, black people, homosexuals, etc).
My conclusion is that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology and, further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true.
Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity.
-Bertrand Russell
Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity.
-Bertrand Russell