Another hypothetical for theists.

[The Grand Nudger]

Do you really think that it's me having trouble imagining any state of affairs otherwise..Neo? It's easy for me to see how, vested with a single gram of the alleged power of the almighty, that I could improve this world. I don't even -need- a gram of the power of the almighty, I'm already capable, already doing it. You..otoh, don't know and can't know. Kittens therefore syphilis. Intelligibility therefore dysentery. Moral agency therefore ebola.

It;s not even difficult for me to see how we'd end up with the world that we have, assuming a god..as I already opined on. It's just the best Jeff could do.

You can't even grant a baseline of -possibility- based on actuality.  So, perhaps..turn that light inward and let wonder lead you to knowledge?

[Catholic_Lady]

Youre either trying to be misleading, or you misunderstood what both he and I said.

He was talking about a world where God didn't exist at all (an atheistic world). Since we believe God is the creator of everything, we think the world wouldn't exist in the first place if God didnt. Obviously I agree with that, and was not saying otherwise on my post.

We are talking about apples, and he is talking about oranges, lol. If he or you want to debate the likelihood of a logical world (as opposed to a world with bloodshed, which is what the initial argument with him was about), then provide the reason for the likelihoods that would be assigned to such worlds under theism as opposed to under naturalism. If it's significantly higher under theism than under naturalism (and it seems like that's what both of you are saying), then I would want to know why, considering that there have been no good reasons presented to suggest such differences. Like I said earlier, this world could easily exist due to laws of logic alone, as opposed to needing a deity to bring it forth into existence. So I don't understand this unjustified confidence in having a 0% (or close to it) likelihood to a logical world existing under naturalism. It's like the theist's mind is closed to the possibility that a world could even exist without a god (ironically enough, Neo suggests my mind is the one being closed to opposing views). How about you try thinking more in terms of likelihoods and probabilities as opposed to absolute certainties, especially when it comes to matters of metaphysics?

Going back to the specific killing and bloodshed, even if just very briefly, assuming equal likelihoods for logical worlds under both theism and naturalism, what is the likelihood that a world with bloodshed and killing exists under naturalism compared to the likelihood under theism? There need not be numbers involved. Just argue under which hypothesis, the likelihood is higher, and is the difference significant or insignificant? A clear intuition tells me that the likelihood of this world (in terms of bloodshed and killing and suffering and such, NOT in terms of intelligibility or whatever) is going to be higher under naturalism than under theism, and reasonably so. To argue otherwise is just clear bias.

If you're asking for the reasons I believe what I do, I've spoken about them on multiple occassions around the forums. As far as I can tell, that's not really the topic of this thread though.

Your question on the second paragraph is impossible to answer, since I don't think a world (much less moral laws) would exist in the first place if God didnt exist.

[The Grand Nudger]

May as well try to pull a ducks teeth, Grand.

[GrandizerII]

@Neo, you shifted to the argument about mathematics and intelligibility because you know by sticking to the problem of suffering in this world, you would have to concede that the odds don't look good for a Christian God in this specific topic.

And yes, I am assuming that the existence of some logical world is equally probable under both competing hypotheses in the Bayesian analysis undertaken above because (1) it's good IMO to stick to one subject at a time when doing step-by-step Bayesian reasoning and (2) because a logical world seems almost equally likely under both theism and naturalism (under naturalism, one can reasonably argue that all you need are logical and mathematical absolutes for a world to exist). At least, intuitively, that is. But if you have good reasons to have the likelihoods significantly adjusted in favor of your preferred deity, let's hear them. How is a world that is logical more likely under theism than under naturalism?

That assumption is the fatal flaw of your thought problem - that the existence or non-existence of God affects one, and only one variable – the degree of violence and disaster of the world. From this faulty premise you propose that the existence of God is unlikely.

I do not accept your first premise because I do not find it plausible that only one variable would be affected by the existence of God. You deliberately ignore potential goods in your calculation, goods that undermine your premise. These I have previously mentioned and are as follows:

Moral Agency
Voluntary Love
Courage and Fortitude
Ambition and Victory
Rational Order
Rational Thought
and so on...

To me the entire hypothetical is implausible. It makes no sense to speculate about the implications of conditions that in themselves are nonsense.

No, no, no, no, no. The argument was about whether your god's posterior probability decreases or increases after examining this world of bloodshed and killing, that's all. It wasn't an argument about whether god is likely or unlikely overall. That would take a series of Bayesian analyses, and not just one simple one.

And of course we have to make some assumptions before one carries out the calculations because we don't have 100% knowledge of everything pertaining to this world. When doing such Bayesian analyses, I'm assuming that there is even a possibility that your god exists (let alone that your god is competitive enough as an explanation to rival naturalism), yet you don't see me complaining. Funny how I'm supposed to be the one close-minded, yet you and CL insist on the impossibility of a world without your preferred god.

And just as I have to assume your god is possible, it's reasonable to assume that it's also possible a world can exist without god. It doesn't matter, by the way, what prior probabilities you assign to each explanation, as long as they're not 0% (because you always have to account for some uncertainty on your part). What matters is that we be honest about the likelihoods (the conditional probabilities) of events given each explanations, and thereby the posterior probabilities as well. And one simple Bayesian analysis isn't going to necessarily render your god unlikely, but if it decreases your god's probability of being the explanation, then it does mean that whatever it is we're currently analyzing is unfavorable to your god. But again, it doesn't mean suddenly god is unlikely. That would require a series of analyses. It also doesn't mean that if god's posterior probability has gone down after one analysis that it would consistently go down after every subsequent analysis.

So when discussing bloodshed and killing, after examining that we live in a world with such things, then it is very reasonable to argue that god's probability decreases as a result. It would be clearly biased to argue that this world points more to god than to naturalism, in terms of bloodshed and killing.

So moving on, regarding the variables you listed, can we make a good case for the likelihoods of such things given each explanation? This looks like it's going to be trickier than the initial topic we were arguing about, but we'll see what your reasoning is, and if it's reasonable, then we'll analyze the existence of god and naturalism in Bayesian manner in light of the variables. Let's do moral agency first.

---

We are talking about apples, and he is talking about oranges, lol. If he or you want to debate the likelihood of a logical world (as opposed to a world with bloodshed, which is what the initial argument with him was about), then provide the reason for the likelihoods that would be assigned to such worlds under theism as opposed to under naturalism. If it's significantly higher under theism than under naturalism (and it seems like that's what both of you are saying), then I would want to know why, considering that there have been no good reasons presented to suggest such differences. Like I said earlier, this world could easily exist due to laws of logic alone, as opposed to needing a deity to bring it forth into existence. So I don't understand this unjustified confidence in having a 0% (or close to it) likelihood to a logical world existing under naturalism. It's like the theist's mind is closed to the possibility that a world could even exist without a god (ironically enough, Neo suggests my mind is the one being closed to opposing views). How about you try thinking more in terms of likelihoods and probabilities as opposed to absolute certainties, especially when it comes to matters of metaphysics?

Going back to the specific killing and bloodshed, even if just very briefly, assuming equal likelihoods for logical worlds under both theism and naturalism, what is the likelihood that a world with bloodshed and killing exists under naturalism compared to the likelihood under theism? There need not be numbers involved. Just argue under which hypothesis, the likelihood is higher, and is the difference significant or insignificant? A clear intuition tells me that the likelihood of this world (in terms of bloodshed and killing and suffering and such, NOT in terms of intelligibility or whatever) is going to be higher under naturalism than under theism, and reasonably so. To argue otherwise is just clear bias.

If you're asking for the reasons I believe what I do, I've spoken about them on multiple occassions around the forums. As far as I can tell, that's not really the topic of this thread though.

Your question on the second paragraph is impossible to answer, since I don't think a world (much less moral laws) would exist in the first place if God didnt exist.

Impossible to answer? I'm telling you to assume that some logical world is possible under naturalism. Use your intuition here. If such a thing is possible, then would this world of bloodshed and killing point more to your actively loving god or more to a nature that's passively callous and uncaring?

And the topic of this thread does imply Bayesian thinking. Read my response to Neo above for some elaboration on what I'm doing, and not doing, with my Bayesian argument.