The Case for Theism

[Jackalope]

I just hope there is a fence for these agnostics to sit on in hell.

I sincerely hope you didn't open with your best material.

[Cyberman]

Interesting variation on christian cliché #43.

[Norfolk And Chance]

I agree that God doesn't make himself indisputably known in some fashion.

Of course "He" doesn't, because there is no "He". It is not real.

[ManMachine]

So? Science advances as we learn new things. For instance, Charles Darwin proposed a mechanism for evolution but didn't know precisely how it might work. The discovery of DNA blew the field wide open. However it would take something pretty drastic to completely overturn much of what we know.

I think the idea that 'science advances' is highly questionable.

There is a misunderstanding in Western thought that truth will set us free. Free from religion, free from ignorance, free from the evolutionary bonds that tie us to our animal past. This is a myth, a Socratic dream.

Socratic philosophy was born of a mystical experience, Socrates inner 'voice of God'. The rational examination of life is founded on faith, there is no connection between human well-being and increased knowledge about our world. We are blinded by the evolutionary imperatives that drive us, we seek genetic perpetuation, not truth. To think otherwise is to fall into the pre-Darwinist trap of imagining humans are different from other animals, it's unscientific.

As evolutionary biologist, Robert Trivers points out, evolution will 'select for a degree of self-decption, rendering some facts and motives unconscious so as not to betray - by the subtle signs of self-knowledge - the decption being practiced.'

Science will never be used chiefly to persue truth,or to improve human life. Science cannot be used to reshape humanity into a more rational species. We look back into history and see how irrational humanity has been and we imagine we have moved beyond that, that we are better than our ancestors, but this is a delusion. We may have found new ways to deceive ourselves through scientific endeavour but we are just as irrational as a species as we have always been, and future generations will recognise this about us as we recognise it about our ancestors. It is a curious stance that humanity as a species must and will be rational, one that has no evidence to support it, and yet it lies at the heart of modern scientific faith.

Folklore has grown up around an old English King, Canute. It is said he once stood against the waves to demonstrate his power, and as expected the waves carried on and he dissapeared under the water as the tide came in. We can hold science up, Canute-like, against irrational human behaviour but, like ancient Kings, we too will be washed away.

'Science advances' is a cacophonic hymn from the church of delusional humanists.


MM

[Esquilax]

Absolutely but note the word 'facts'. As long as a fact is in evidence either side can use the fact or physical evidence to make their case. What they can't do is make up some alternate theory based on the mere possibility such could occur minus any facts or evidence it did occur.

Hey Drew, did you miss the part where I linked you out to a couple of sources describing the theoretical underpinnings of the multiple worlds hypothesis? Or are you just disregarding that because it contradicts this idea that the alternative theories we've been presenting are mere confabulations?

Incidentally, where's your evidence for your design/chance dichotomy?

A lot of atheists say we should look for the simpler naturalistic explanation for things such as life and sentience and we should avoid claiming a miracle happened. But which scenario is really less miraculous, that the universe, life and sentience is the result of plan and design or the result of mindless forces that didn't intend such to occur but happened anyway? Lets compare it to the existence of a computer, would it be less miraculous to say a computer is the result of design and engineering or it was the unintended by product of the laws of physics that unintentionally created a computer? Before anyone blows a gasket I know in response you're going to say its an unfair comparison because we know a computer was designed and engineered. The point is in trying to avoid the supernatural miracle of a Creator causing the existence of life and sentience it would seem a greater miracle is being called for by claiming that mindless, lifeless forces without plan or intent caused something greater than itself to exist. Is anyone going to argue that sentience and mind isn't greater than the source it is alleged to have come from?

And your third line of evidence is...

*drumroll*

The argument from personal incredulity!

Got anything real to talk about?

---

Science will never be used chiefly to persue truth,or to improve human life.

I think the computer you used to type this, an instantaneous communication tool to anywhere in the world, and medical science that has doubled the human lifespan, beg to differ.

[genkaus]

Bear in mind I have only submitted thus far two lines of evidence.

Beat on mind that both have been refuted.

You support a theory by citing facts that comport with your theory. That is evidence your theory is true. As I mentioned in the original post, I am making a 'legal' type case in favor of theism. In a court of law even in a civil case offering a theory in favor of a theory is inadmissible. Besides as a practical matter I have been repeatedly told atheists have come to their conclusions based on facts. Its not true of course but it is what they say.

Wrong actually. Using circumstantial evidence is supporting a 'theory' in the sense you use it and two theories, each supported by their own set of circumstantial evidence can and are used to support each other.

It is if you yourself don't actually believe there are two cars. Why raise a possibility you yourself don't believe is true other than to be argumentative?

Because that one personally does not believe in it does not preclude it from being a valid argument.

Secondly this is a oranges to grenades analogy. Unlike two cars in a garage which is a real possibility we're familiar with the notion something could be neither by plan or by happenstance is a foreign concept.

No, its not. In fact, it is something that theists themselves tend to argue regularly when it comes to their god.

[Cyberman]

---

So? Science advances as we learn new things. For instance, Charles Darwin proposed a mechanism for evolution but didn't know precisely how it might work. The discovery of DNA blew the field wide open. However it would take something pretty drastic to completely overturn much of what we know.

I think the idea that 'science advances' is highly questionable.

There is a misunderstanding in Western thought that truth will set us free. Free from religion, free from ignorance, free from the evolutionary bonds that tie us to our animal past. This is a myth, a Socratic dream.

Socratic philosophy was born of a mystical experience, Socrates inner 'voice of God'. The rational examination of life is founded on faith, there is no connection between human well-being and increased knowledge about our world. We are blinded by the evolutionary imperatives that drive us, we seek genetic perpetuation, not truth. To think otherwise is to fall into the pre-Darwinist trap of imagining humans are different from other animals, it's unscientific.

As evolutionary biologist, Robert Trivers points out, evolution will 'select for a degree of self-decption, rendering some facts and motives unconscious so as not to betray - by the subtle signs of self-knowledge - the decption being practiced.'

Science will never be used chiefly to persue truth,or to improve human life. Science cannot be used to reshape humanity into a more rational species. We look back into history and see how irrational humanity has been and we imagine we have moved beyond that, that we are better than our ancestors, but this is a delusion. We may have found new ways to deceive ourselves through scientific endeavour but we are just as irrational as a species as we have always been, and future generations will recognise this about us as we recognise it about our ancestors. It is a curious stance that humanity as a species must and will be rational, one that has no evidence to support it, and yet it lies at the heart of modern scientific faith.

Folklore has grown up around an old English King, Canute. It is said he once stood against the waves to demonstrate his power, and as expected the waves carried on and he dissapeared under the water as the tide came in. We can hold science up, Canute-like, against irrational human behaviour but, like ancient Kings, we too will be washed away.

'Science advances' is a cacophonic hymn from the church of delusional humanists.


MM

---

You seem to be confusing the use of the term "science advances", meant in the sense that the body of scientific knowledge increases as new discoveries and tools are made, with the sense of "science advances society", which I certainly did not say. If the latter is what you mean, then that would indeed depend on how such knowledge is used. The discovery of atomic reactions was used both for peaceful and politico-military purposes, which carry the potential for making the world more prosperous and less stable respectively. Far from being "a cacophonic hymn from the church of delusional humanists", the term as I employed it could more correctly be called a truism if anything. Maybe you can think of an area of science in which we know less than we did previously, because I'm buggered if I can.

"Science will never be used chiefly to persue truth,or to improve human life"? Tell that to the millions of people who annually survive medical conditions and traumas which only too recently in history would have been fatal; including my own mother, who around twenty years ago endured, and survived through emergency medical intervention, a brain haemorrhage. Hell, remember it next time you or someone you know and love develops an infection, or needs dental work.

Oh, and when you make cultural references, please be sure to get them right. Bear in mind that as an Englishman I am not unfamiliar with King Canute (or Cnut, as he's now rather dyslexically known). The legend has him defying the tide of the River Lavant, not as an Ozymandias-style exercising of his power over nature, but as a clear demonstration that no-one, not even a King, has that sort of power. In other words, he knew ahead of time what was going to happen and proved it to anyone who thought otherwise.

[genkaus]

Thus far I have submitted two lines of evidence that I have argued favor belief in theism.

1. The fact the universe exists.
2. The fact life exists.

And now I will offer a third fact.

3. The fact sentient life exists.

As I mentioned in the OP I'm not a theist just because there are facts that comport with theism, the same facts seem to contradict the atheist narrative (that the universe, life and sentient life we're not created on purpose) that however such came to be, no personal agent intended it to happen, it wasn't by plan or design. I'll let the reader decide if minus plan, design or intent whether the result is by happenstance since that seems to be a major sticking point for some. I would argue it is still a tall order for mindless lifeless forces to produce something totally unlike itself both life and mind minus any plan, intent or knowledge* of how to do it.

A lot of atheists say we should look for the simpler naturalistic explanation for things such as life and sentience and we should avoid claiming a miracle happened. But which scenario is really less miraculous, that the universe, life and sentience is the result of plan and design or the result of mindless forces that didn't intend such to occur but happened anyway? Lets compare it to the existence of a computer, would it be less miraculous to say a computer is the result of design and engineering or it was the unintended by product of the laws of physics that unintentionally created a computer? Before anyone blows a gasket I know in response you're going to say its an unfair comparison because we know a computer was designed and engineered. The point is in trying to avoid the supernatural miracle of a Creator causing the existence of life and sentience it would seem a greater miracle is being called for by claiming that mindless, lifeless forces without plan or intent caused something greater than itself to exist. Is anyone going to argue that sentience and mind isn't greater than the source it is alleged to have come from?

*For the sake of argument I'm going to say lack of knowledge but could something cause something to happen without the information needed to do so?

So far, I've refuted two lines of evidence and I'd refute the third one, but really, there isn't any new argument here. If you are going to use the same old combination of false dichotomy and argument from incredulity, then you might as well consider all your future arguments refuted. Here you once again start with assuming that plan and design or mindless forces are the only two possibilities (again, without any evidence for that theory) and since you simply cannot believe the latter to be possible, the former it true. This line of reasoning has been refuted many times over, has been shown to be invalid multiple times and if you keep repeating it, then we might just make a sticky post detailing the refutation and link to it while replying to any future arguments.

[Mystic]

People have to learn when do bow out of a debate. When things get repetitive, it's better to stop.

[genkaus]

Absolutely but note the word 'facts'. As long as a fact is in evidence either side can use the fact or physical evidence to make their case. What they can't do is make up some alternate theory based on the mere possibility such could occur minus any facts or evidence it did occur.

The only 'facts' in evidence here are that the universe exists and that the life exists. They comport as much with the 'theories' of eternal universe, circular universe, multiverse etc. as they do with yours. So, really, we don't need to provide any additional evidence when your own proves you wrong.

No but any lawyer worth his salt would object to his adversary attempting to introduce an alternate theory weaved out of thin air or even on the basis that some alternate theory is feasible. They still have to ground it in evidence or facts produced in the hearing. Even in closing arguments they'll get an objection if they start making arguments apart from facts or evidence brought out in the case. That is why jurors are referred to as the triers of fact.

And the objection would be overruled - since in this case those alternate 'theories' comport with the evidence you provided.