Theologians have long engaged in apologetics to explain the order of nature: the regularity of physical laws, fine-tuning of physical constants, and the like. The explanation, of course, is God. Now just to show that there is no observation that The God Hypothesis cannot answer, the Templeton Foundation is throwing big bucks at a project aiming to show how God explains the converse hypothesis: the randomness of nature. Reader Sigmund is on the case and has provided a guest post.
It all goes to show what I’ve long maintained: there is no observation about nature—including the Holocaust—that cannot be explained away by sufficiently diligent theologians. And that, of course, shows that, to a true believer, there is no observation about the universe that could ever disconfirm the presence of God. (To a nonbeliever like me, however, there is evidence that could suggest the presence of a God, like the 900-foot Jesus I’ve discussed before.) A hypothesis that can explain any possible observation explains nothing. The last sentence of this piece proves that religion falls into that trap.
___________________________
Another slice of Templeton Randomness
by Sigmund
Last week BioLogos featured a guest post by James Bradley, a mathematician based at Calvin College, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in which he proudly announced a new initiative with the rather embarrassing title, “The Randomness Project”. The project purports to address why science fails to reveal evidence for a guiding force in nature. Those of us familiar with the business of modern Christian apologetics need only hear three more words to piece together the objectives, methods and outcome of the entire process. Those words are, of course, “The Templeton Foundation”.
According to Bradley, the project supervisor:
“It is not uncommon to hear voices proclaiming that biology and physics have shown us that—at fundamental levels—nature is random, hence meaningless, purposeless, and without a creator. In fact, chance (or randomness) has often been seen as inconsistent with Christian faith by Christians, too, not just by those opposed to faith. But how might God work providentially through indeterminate processes? The John Templeton Foundation has provided a generous grant of $1.69 million to support a new research initiative on the theme of Randomness and Divine providence.”
Thinking about why there’s no direct evidence for God doesn’t come cheap. The project will involve grants of up to $200,000 each, to be awarded to eight to ten scholars or teams of scholars who will spend up to two years examining various questions associated with randomness in nature.
According to the Request for Proposals section on the randomness website,
“Grant recipients are expected to produce one or more original manuscripts publishable in a suitable journal and to participate in an opening workshop in June of 2013 and a closing conference in June of 2015. Furthermore, grant recipients who successfully publish a popular article on their results will be eligible to receive a popular dissemination bonus award of $3,000. “
Nice work if you can get it, I suppose.
But what are the specific questions that Templeton wants answered?
The project’s website lists thirteen topics that form the basis for project proposals. Some of these seem determined to mix science and theology,
- “How might God work providentially through indeterminate processes? Can recent advances in understanding the nature of randomness offered by algorithmic information theory, physics, biology, and other sciences provide insight into this question?
- What are some possible implications of randomness for hiding or unfolding divine creativity and purpose in the world? Could God use randomness to (1) generate creativity, (2) hide divine actions, or (3) unfold information? Why might God do so?
- How might we mathematically and physically model random processes in ways that help us understand how divine providence could be exercised in a “chance-governed” world?
- How do “laws and orders” in nature interplay with “chance and randomness” in bringing about results that can be interpreted as aspects of divine providence?
Others seem to mix theology and, well, more theology:
- What are some theodical implications of randomness, particularly for the issue of natural evil?
- How have the theological traditions of Augustine, Maimonides, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin addressed chance and fortune? In what ways might they incorporate ontological randomness?
There’s even a question mixing theology and quantum mechanics that wouldn’t seem out of place in a Deepak Chopra book:
- How might an understanding of providence based on an extended Molinism and/or open theology incorporate randomness? For example, could an extended Molinism provide a plausible account of the relationship between quantum mechanics and divine providence?
Surprisingly, there’s even one nod towards atheistic interpretations of randomness.
- “How is the concept of randomness understood by advocates of secularism, naturalism, and new atheism? What are the strengths and weaknesses of these usages?”
“Strengths and weaknesses?”
I’m sure I’ve heard that phrase somewhere before.
One hardly needs $200,000 dollars and two years to answer that question.
New atheists regard the evidence for random processes in nature to be consistent with a universe without an intervening deity.
The strength of this model is that it is fits all evidence found to date, allows for predictions that can be tested, and doesn’t require any additional non-evidenced forces (such as the continuing action of a God).
Unfortunately , considering that applications are judged on “how well the specific proposal comports with the spirit of the list of bulleted items above” I’m afraid that the ‘weakness ‘ of the atheistic perspective is likely to be its failure to elaborate a potential hiding space for for Jesus.
And finally, just in case you might be wondering. No, there’s no danger the study will provide answers the Templeton Foundation doesn’t want to hear. They already know the “truth”, and their plea to scholars (meaning theologians who can do math) is quite explicit:
“join us in exploring the truth that all creation glorifies God—even randomness!”
What ALWAYS leaps out at me from this stuff is that these people never have any TESTABLE hypotheses. They never actually contribute to the body of knowledge.
When you draw your conclusions first, and look for your evidence afterward, nothing you have to say is valid. L
Maybe reality cannot be reduced exclusively to what is testable..?
That’s certainly a possibility, and a trivial one to hypothesize. If you’re a brain in a vat / pugged into the Matrix / a pawn in the Red King’s dream, then the puppet master(s) could easily play mind games on you.
However, we have millennia of mutually-supportive evidence that reality is as it appears to be, and that that reality is eminently suited to empirical analysis.
Science hasn’t failed us yet and doesn’t even show any hints of hypothetical possible future failures. Thinking there’s even the slightest real-world chance it won’t is even more insane than thinking that the Sun won’t rise tomorrow.
Cheers,
b&
(To Ben) You’ll understand then that the frame provided by evolution is not an easy one to escape. That is also why it works so well. But that tells us nothing about the range of reality. Evolution led us where we are but why that “destination” and the perspective it provides would be absolute?
“Destination”?
What on Earth do destinations have to do with the Theory of Evolution by Random Mutation and Natural Selection?
Or is this some sort of existentialist bicycle-lightbulb-fish joke?
b&
By destination I mean the “place” we occupy in the chain. That’s it. I also say that it is not because evolution led us “there” that it gives us an absolute perspective on reality.
Chain? What chain?
And chains have links, not “places” one can somehow occupy.
I’m sorry, but you’re making less sense with every post you make. You sure you’re not “enhancing” your consciousness as we type?
b&
“Chain” << this is the type of 'Language Abuse' that Ben Goran has mentioned often. A word or phrase sounds, at first blush, to have useful characteristics to help us understand something. But, ultimately, it proves to be nonsensical….."North of the North Pole" and "married bachelors".
"Language Abuse" is all that religionists wield.
So which word or sentence could talk about the range, the place Homo Sapiens occupy from an evolutionist perspective? If that word exists, then, this is what I mean.
So what would be that word please?
Since I still have no clue what it is you’re trying to express, and since I strongly suspect that, whatever it is you think you’re trying to express is simply incoherent, I’m afraid I can’t help you pick the word you’re looking for.
H. sapiens sapiens is one of four extant species of great apes. We are particularly notable for being the best long-distance runners of all land animals; the best all-around athletes; having the most dexterous manipulative appendages of all species; the richest communication methods; and cognitive skills unmatched by any other species. “Other than that,” we are decidedly unremarkable — a middle-sized mid-level African omnivore, nominally occupying an ecological niche not unlike our close cousins, the orangutans.
Does that help?
b&
@ Bebop
A twig on a tree, perhaps.
But our twig is no more or less evolved (or important) than any other twig, nor does it give us a privileged perspective on reality.
Nevertheless, all twigs perceive the same reality, although each may perceive reality differently.
/@
Templeton’s strategy is that “reality” is defined first, and then their RFPs are sent out looking for academic whores to buttress that “reality”.
Even if “…reality cannot be reduced exclusively to what is testable..?” (which I dispute), Templeton has NEVER funded anything which could be remotely defined as RESEARCH. All they want to do is find people who might lend credibility to what they already believe.
Can you imagine how much good all that money might do? Fund real research, vaccinate, school, feed, etc.?
Wow. L
I think your everyday life provides you a lot of examples that reality cannot be reduced to what is testable or measurable. The fact that you can test and measure is just one (you can’t have objectivity without subjectivity).
Of course, you have decided in advance that consciousness can only be a chemical and electrical phenomenon so why try to find a ground where spirituality and science can meet?
Philosophy, like science and life evolves too.
We take for granted that the ideas of dualism and monism (materialistic or religious) are there because you know, they are there, but those concepts have an history, they come from somewhere and slowly began to be our frame of reference. And science as a method, but also as a wider reference, was influenced by this process. You’ll say that science is science and that objectivity is objectivity precisely because of the history those ideas carry.
So I see no problem with trying to find new ideas and concept that will change our mind and make us evolve in a different ways like science did. Of course, some attempts will fail but you can’t stop the human mind to think about the concept of meaning, which is something science can’t stay much about by the way…
Eh, no, that’s a conclusion based on every available piece of evidence, an evidential chain that dates back millennia.
Or is it your position that alcohol, other pharmaceuticals, injury, and other physical stimuli have no effect on consciousness? Or that there are aspects of consciousness not subject to the influence of drugs or a scalpel?
b&
It is not because the tv is broken that the signal is affected. It will influence the way the tv is able to transmit the signal but it doesn’t change anything to the source of the signal.
If you’re trying to imply that brains are receivers for some sort of ethereal transmitter, that’s an idea that was debunked about the same time as the notion of demonic possession as the cause of mental illness.
And you have heard the news about phlogiston, astrology, and Tinkerbell, too, no?
b&
How can this be debunked? How could you possibly test that hypothesis? You can’t because you need to be conscious to make an experience. You need that background. The problem is we don’t know where that background comes from. We can see the chemical traces it does in the brain but we can’t know if those traces are actually consciousness.
Oh, that’s trivial.
First, I have to point out that, though we certainly don’t know everything there is to know about cognition, the broad outline is very clear. It starts with physiology, including the many famous cases of patients with brain injuries, both accidental and as a result of various surgeries. That alone is enough to tell us that everything we think of as being part of our personalities is directly tied to one or more specific parts of the brain. Further work with pharmacology (even in the most ancient form of beer) serves to emphasize that point, and modern brain imaging techniques are pushing the point home harder and harder. And, as if even that weren’t enough, computer simulation and information theory are almost enough all by themselves to cement the naturalistic model of cognition as the correct one.
In short, even before we bother examining he faery-spirit-ghost hypothesis of cognition, we’ve already got a rock-solid basic understanding of cognition. Anything that is going to usurp that is going to have to do a lot better, and your word-salad woo doesn’t even come close. Indeed, your TV model is right down there in the muck with the one that says that daemons are responsible for mental illness.
But, we’ll press ahead.
If there’s some nebulous phantasm doing our thinking for us, and our brains are only receivers, then we know that there would have to be two-way communication going on between the two. Our brains would have to report the input of our senses to our sprites, and they’d have to send the necessary commands back to our brains.
But Claude Shannon demonstrated that there are very specific, hard physical limits on communication, and particularly in regards to the energy needed to transmit the signal. Any time there’s any sort of communication going on, there’s also an expenditure of energy. It doesn’t matter what form of communication — even reading a book requires expenditure of energy.
We’ve incidentally done all sorts of observations of the energy consumption of the brain, and never has there been even a hint of the sorts of energy expenditures necessary for that type of communication.
Therefore, either there isn’t any phantom communication going on, or, if it is, it’s going on without energy — which means it’s a perpetual motion machine.
So, there it is: in one corner, we have the naturalistic theory of cognition, supported by observations dating back millennia and the full weight of modern neuroscience and information theory; in the other corner, we have magical, undetectable boojums whose hypothesized function only works if they can violate the conservation of energy.
If you want to believe in magic, knock yourself out. But you shouldn’t at all be surprised when everybody else laughs hysterically at your idiocy for falling for such an obvious scam.
Cheers,
b&
The problem Ben is that you believe that only what can be measured exists for real. By that same logic, you presume that even an exterior consciousness, if this could exist, has to be material.
And guess why science isn’t able to look what can’t be measured?
Consciousness is not an object. But that doesn’t prevent it to be a perpetual moving no-thing. It is exactly a perpetual no-thing because it is uncreated.
What never began has no problem to feed anything for the eternity.
Well, of course. And so do you.
If something has an effect on the universe, if it alters its surroundings by its actions or presence, then — duh! — we can observe it. Granted, some phenomena are more difficult to suss out than others, but our abilities in this sort of thing are astonishing. The LHC has observed the Higgs Boson, for an example in the news recently; and we’ve repeatedly observed dark matter, for an example at the other end of the scale.
You yourself are arguing for some sort of wraith whose intentions directly control our bodies. That’s the very definition of “humanly detectable.”
Coming back to dark matter: we went looking for it because, after adding up everything else we had observed, it was obvious that something was missing.
Your arguments for sprites controlling our bodies might carry some weight if there was a gaping hole in our understanding of cognition needing explanation, but there isn’t one. The only gaping hole is in your understanding of the field.
If you’re serious about your implied desire to better understand cognition, I most strongly urge you to get up to speed on the subject, rather than make conclusions based on the assumption that everybody else is as ignorant as you are on the subject.
Cheers,
b&
Do you understand the concept of predictive validity?
Science as a method supports predictive validity. If something is valid, it is replicable and predictable. If it is not predictable, science asks why not, and continues to look and to evaluate. Wrong conclusions can be reevaluated and jettisoned..
And, it always starts with observation and experience.
Religion, on the other hand, BEGINS with conclusions. Religion tries to cling to its conclusions even when they don’t hold water. Experience and observation are discounted when they don’t comport with the conclusions already drawn.
If the hocus-pocus doesn’t work, religion concludes that it’s the fault of the performer, not of the hocus-pocus. How nuts is that? L
I love science and I’m not disputing that it is a perfect and efficient way to gain knowledge.
I’m disputing the belief that it is the exclusive way to gain knowledge and that what can’t be measured or tested isn’t real.
I think subjectivity is as real as objectivity.
You wouldn’t be able to conceive objectivity if it wasn’t of your own subjectivity.
Who in the world doesn’t think subjectivity exists? The problem is how one successfully separates subjective claims that are representative of reality from those that are not. What methodology do you use other than (broadly based) science? The history of science is a veritable bone yard of dead syllogisms, intuitions and deductions.
Give us something beyond deepities and generalizations.
I agree that what is objective is more measurable than what is subjective. A property of the material world is that it can be measured, just like wetness comes with water.
What I’m only saying is that objectivity just can’t exist without objectivity. It is not a contest between both. The thing is that they rely on each other to make sense. You need subjectivity to make sense out of objectivity and objectivity just wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t of subjectivity.
Simple as that. Nothing deep here. You just can’t have one without the other.
But it looks like one is more real than the other.
@ Bebop
1. It is an unsubstantiated leap to go from “subjectivity exists” to “uncreated consciousness exists”. There is no evidence and your “hypothesis” lacks predictive as well as explanatory power, per my questions to you on an earlier post.
2. Subjectivity is amenable to scientific investigation. See, for example, the work on NDEs and OOBEs.
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As a concrete example in a field I’m familiar with, most of color science is the result of objective analysis of the very subjective phenomenon of color perception.
For example, people are shown two colors, one of which they can control with some knobs, and they’re asked to fiddle those knobs until the two colors match. Of course, the two colors are the result of entirely different spectral mixes reaching their eyes, but, subjectively, they look the same.
Lots more where that one came from, believe me.
Cheers,
b&
Well, yes, of course (and I’ve just experienced some of those tests first hand at the explOratorium in San Francisco!).
But I thought NDEs and OOBEs were particularly apt examples as they’re “supposed” to be subjective experiences that indicate some other reality.
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There are thousands…and look to the (Paul) Allen Institute for Brain Science, as a leading source of videos, papers, and information today….there are thousands of papers, experiments, demonstrating the physical, ion-based nature of our consciousness and memory. You are ignoring, Bebop, -willfully- ignoring, the THOUSANDS of examples, of real-world testing of brains and brain cells, and the fact-based certainty that consciousness is derived within the brain, and only within the brain. You are reducing the sum functionality of 80 TRILLION synapses each of us carries, to a comparison to a television set and a radio wave frequency. This is akin to jumping over a glass of water to demonstrate that flying over the Atlantic Ocean (also H20) is a trivial matter.
One word: calcium
Calcium ions play a huge part in memory. They go no where when you die, any more than your eyes, nose, heart, toes go anywhere. Those calcium ions remain only in your brain, not transmigrated. Your memories, consciousness, lose their form, just like any ice sculpture in the heat becomes a mere water puddle, and retains nothing of the artist’s many hours of labor.
No afterlife, no Deity, no angels or heaven. None. Sorry. That is all.
Thank you. I’ll check that.
Actually, being able to test can follow as an inference from more basic philosophical assumptions. Those assumptions can even be taken in refutation. The catch is, taking such refutation leads to a short road into Ramsey theory, and results that are even more dooming to theology than the conventional results of science.
Bebop wrote:
“We take for granted that the ideas of dualism and monism (materialistic or religious) are there because you know, they are there, but those concepts have an history, they come from somewhere and slowly began to be our frame of reference. And science as a method, but also as a wider reference, was influenced by this process. You’ll say that science is science and that objectivity is objectivity precisely because of the history those ideas carry.”
Please describe in clear, precise, detailed language these other frames of reference, these other ways of ascertaining reality of which you speak. Describe the mechanism by which you determine that information gathered from them is reliable, and how this mechanism is different from the scientific method. Describe exactly how you know they really, truly exist at all.
You can’t simply assert that science doesn’t explore the entirety of reality without providing an intelligible explanation of whatever you think the complements are, and how you became aware of them. “It’s all very complicated and mysterious” is nowhere close to a good enough argument.
Your characterizations of yourself and of most other commenters here is backward. Folks like Ben wait for evidence before making assertions or trying to describe the state of affairs. Evidence first, conclusions after. You have concluded that there are other mysterious “frames of reference” or “ways of knowing”, apparently in the face of no supporting evidence. If there is evidence, please just cite it here and clearly, plainly explain it.
“plainly explain”
Is that redundant? Oops.
Only if you’re doing it in the rainy parts of Spain….
b&
Mainly, yes.
+1
I wouldn’t say they’ve never funded anything that could be defined as research. I think they were the funders of the prayer study that showed that it didn’t work – and even Ecklunds first paper on the religiosity of scientists (although not all the terrible follow-ups) was useful research.
Unfortunately, considering the money they have available, they fund very little useful science.
Yeah, and when I read this post this morning, I turned to my wife and said, “Ever since the Templeton Foundation funded a study that showed that intercessory prayer doesn’t work, they’ve been kicking themselves for it. They’ll never do that again.” The approach by which they’ve decided to walk that result back is audacious – you’ve got to admit that! What? The results of our prayer study shows no correlation between prayers for healing and actual healing? I guess we’d better hire some intellectual prostitutes who’ll agree to come up with some way of reversing the oft-repeated warning: correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation. Now they’re going to find some whore to say that causation doesn’t have anything to do with correlation. The godbots will lap it up.
Yeah, it can be.
If it’s not measurable, it’s not part of reality.
It’s not quite true that they never have testable hypotheses. A formal sense of parsimony allows at least one sense of the word “testing”.
The catch is, to the extent their hypotheses are testable, the hypotheses are more likely to be wrong than conventional scientific alternative hypotheses.
I can’t put into words how annoying I find this idiocy. What a magnificent waste of time and money. Money that could be used to fund things that actually matter. To feed the poor rather than the egos and coffers of religious leaders.
Reblogged this on Deriving Morality and commented:
This sums up the Templeton foundation and the religious stance in general.
Unadulterated insanity. How much money can be spent on anthropomorphizing gravity?
I would just give the money to Alan Sokal for his work on postmodern gravity
Jerry, unless I’m misunderstanding, this passage seems to indicate a reversal in your thinking from past statements you’ve made, such as your post Can there be evidence for God?, where you disagreed when PZ Myers made the same claim that there can be no evidence for god.
The context of the previous debate was focused on science and its methods, whereas here the issue is how theology deals with observations. It seems ironic that, at least in your view, it is ultimately theology, and not science, that prevents evidence for god.
Yes, I wasn’t clear about what I meant. I’ll rewrite it. Thanks.
Jerry, I think you’ll need to unpack your argument there a bit more. In simplistic terms, you seem to be saying that non-believers can have evidence for god(s), but believers can’t. I suspect that there is a lot going on with the word “suggest” in the statement “there is evidence that could suggest the presence of a God”, but I wonder if you could clarify.
“In simplistic terms, you seem to be saying that non-believers can have evidence for god(s), but believers can’t.”
That sounds about right — at least for a True Believer who would claim that they 100% believe in God. Evidence for a proposition P is something that would tend to increase your belief that P is true; if somebody’s belief in P is already pegged at 100%, then nothing could possibly increase it — so nothing can be evidence for P.
I think the word “possible” is superfluous in that sentence as the hypothesis works just as well with impossible observations, too.
The God hypothesis can even explain impossible observations (people rising from the dead, walking on water, etc.). Such a hypothesis might inflict brain damage if it is not forcefully rejected.
Ha, Greg just beat me to it.
‘…however, there is evidence that could suggest the presence of a God, like the 900-foot Jesus I’ve discussed before.’
I immediately got an image in my head of rather upset 850ft Jesus complaining ‘What do you mean I’m not good enough evidence…’
The J Witnesses have stopped dropping by my house, as I have asked, “Why use the only creature on earth, capable of elaborate lying, bad memory, and other human mistakes, when a simple stone monolith, with all desires and commands, would work best?? Is our city council wiser than a Supreme being, for putting up four stop signs at Pine Ave and Oak Street, instead of sending groups of people door-to-door, telling people “Stop first, before crossing the intersection of Pine and Oak.”??
I like that a lot. 🙂
I bet the JW Crew didn’t.
I’ve not mentioned this until now, but I think (particularly in the more “humanities” areas, but not only) that one way to see why these T. awards get traction is the fall of funding for basic research. Also, other areas in the university have just been gutted – class sizes are ballooning, etc. If we were (everywhere, it seems) fund higher education and research properly, the tendency to take these awards might be reduced.
You are not feeling the power of a million dollars, multiplied by a thousand.
Typo:
“to elaborate a potential hiding space for for Jesus”
There is two “for” before Jesus(-of-the-gap).
Desnes Diev
There ARE two ‘for’s before Jesus…
Sorry. Thank you for correcting me.
Desnes Diev
Eliminate that grocer’s apostrophe and you’ll have acheived first-rate pedant status.
Like me.
“join us in exploring the truth that all creation glorifies God—even randomness!”
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A more apt rephrasing is “join us in feel-good rationalizing of god belief“
Templeton’s whitewashing the grovelling aspects of god belief is alarming in its encouraging and maintaining mental and emotional enslavement. While a despotic royalty may be overthrown, an internalized sense that one is not complete unless every mote is coupled with emotive god belief ensures continued compliance.
What a random choice.
Considering that quantum mechanics is explicitly atheistic, “no hidden variables”, you would think that a rational organization would think twice before throwing the dice.
But the choice of a mathematician as supervisor gives the game up, it is intended to glue together disparate areas by pouring math to hide the cracks:
“Kolmogorov information is increased by randomness. Therefore randomness = information = gods.”
This is taken from the bible of the Discovery Creationists. Expect that Dumbski et al will be first to the steaming money pots.
That means the other foot will be “information by design”, “the programmer put the important parts in there”, et cetera.
I think Joe Felsenstein will be busy if some of this crap is sneaked into “suitable journals” outside of the creationist vanity press.
“Unfolding” ? Is that like “unpacking” ?
Sigmund and Jerry,
As usual, I essentially agree with these criticisms.
But I’m not sure that the project in question is intended to show that randomness is not evidence against God’s existence, or that randomness isn’t better predicted by atheism than by theism. Or if it is, that definitely doesn’t seem to be the primary intention. Instead, it seems to be more like this: ‘Suppose that God exists. What are the implications of randomness for the nature of God, and what are the implications of God’s existence for the nature of that randomness?’
I see how in the last passage you quote, it looks as if the author is suggesting that even randomness provides evidence of God’s existence. But it might be a more modest claim, such as that randomness doesn’t provide evidence against God’s existence. Someone could even maintain, for example, that neither order nor randomness ultimately provides evidence for God’s existence; this person would simply be denying the classical design arguments, which many theist philosophers do.
Last, to play God’s Advocate for a moment: Would a 900′ Jesus really provide evidence for God’s existence? To do so, the prior probability of a God that would produce a 900′ Jesus would have to be pretty high, higher than other explanations (hoaxes, hallucinations, even Cartesian demons or trickster deities) that explain the datum equally well. (This is a version of Hume’s anti-miracles argument.)
That is a philosophical argument akin to “sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic”.
It doesn’t work if it is haphazard observations (non-repeatable), sufficiently constrained conditions, testing the natural non-magic hypothesis absent observations to the contrary, et cetera.
But that specific variant is self-defeating. If you can predict the prior likelihood of an unlikely event to be low in comparison with alternative explanations, then you would be able to reject a gods hypothesis from that.
Those are gods too, working their particular kind of magic.
It is the theists burden of evidence to distinguish between gods, if it is important to him/her.
Torbjörn,
Thanks for your reply.
I don’t fully understand your point here:
I think we would need to know both priors and posteriors.
So suppose J is ‘we observe a 900′ Jesus.’ G is the hypothesis that it was a god who created that event, and N is the hypothesis that it was something else that wasn’t a god. Then:
Even if Pr(G) is low, we can’t rule out G unless we can calculate Pr(N|J), right? In turn, we would need Pr(J|N) and so on. I’m suggesting that Pr(N) is quite a bit higher than Pr(G), but depending on the posterior probabilities, we might still say that J provides evidence for G, and we might not.
As for Cartesian demons being gods, I think people would disagree about whether they count as gods. Such a demon might be extremely limited in other ways, and not responsible for the creation of the universe, for example.
“How might…..?”
“Can…..?”
“What are some possible implications of…..?”
“Could…..?”
“Why might…..?”
“How might………..could be……?”
“How do………..that can be……?”
“What are some theodical implications…..?”
“In what ways might…..?”
“How might…..?”
“For example, could…….provide a plausible……?”
In other words, take a wild guess based on your religious insanity.
And this one really pisses me off:
“How is the concept of randomness understood by advocates of secularism, naturalism, and new atheism?”
How in fu**ing hell would science and reality hating god pushers know how “randomness” is “understood by advocates of secularism, naturalism, and new atheism”?
I am always amazed people think that the “how” question is a problem. Look, its quite easy, casinos work providentially through indeterminate processes. There’s absolutely no logical problem with the concept of a deity using random processes to achieve some goal.
The problem is what that says about the nature of that deity. The problem is the resulting theodicy. The problem is in asserting the tri-omnis about God in the face of randomness. But a non-tri-omni deity (or deities) using randomness? There’s no philosophical problem with that at all. “How” is a nonissue.
Agreed. Indeed for me it is neither a “how” nor a “why” issue; for me it is a “whether” issue (namely, whether there exists an uncaused supernatural creator God in the first place), and presently I am personally profoundly skeptical of the truth of the claim that one surely does (“sophisticated theology” notwithstanding).
“One hardly needs $200,000 dollars and two years to answer that question.”
That’s exactly how much I need to answer that question. Sounds like a great gig. Get 100k a year to live on, and then pull a manuscript out of my ass at the end.
Grant proposal here I come…
(Woody Allen, Selections from the Allen Notebooks, New Yorker, Nov. 5, 1973)
By that yardstick, Templeton bounty recipients have an irresistible incentive to prove god, whether they believe in one or not.
In hoc signo vinces: $$$
(UN)Holy Inconsistency! There seems no rational limit to the obfuscational ingenuity of “Sophisticated Theology.”
It is again “Language Abuse”. I prefer that simple terminology myself. Utilizing the subtleties of English to weave a construct that has no business existing.
Kind of like driving nails into wood with a crowbar. You can make it work, but…..why do it?
Because one of His disciples hid all the hammers…
😮
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Theology: the art of joyfully jumping into a trash can and fooling oneself into believing that pulling the handles hard enough will swiftly catapult the whole to heaven.
Accomodationism: the art of explaining that theology is fully compatible with the laws of nature.
“…pulling the handles.. to heaven.” I like that, I’m going to use it. Thank you!!
Can we lock the theologians who think God provides all order in the universe in a room with the theologians who think God works through randomness and only let them out when they all agree. It sure is tough to debate two completely opposite points of view simultaneously.
They will need an hindu or buddhist scholar to explain how those two opposites – randomness and order (or determinism) are seen as such because we grasp the world on a dual mode,i.e.: through opposites, contrasts and discontinuity.
That mode isn’t in itself absolute but we tend to confound the limits of language, which is a byproduct of our dual grasping, with what is out and in there, which is not limited by what we can say about it.
In other word, a more direct perception, without the filter of our dual mode and language and all what it implies would solve the false problem of randomness vs non-randomness, or should I say, it would give the opportunity to see why it is seen through a perspective that seems to be limited by 2 absolutes.
This isn’t even worng.
Not only do we have no binary senses, we have no digital ones. Every nerve is analog, and what quantization there is is fine-grained waaaaaay beyond our ability to perceive it.
And where quantization artifacts seep into perception, such as the appearance of a handful of distinct colors in the rainbow, it’s never binary. Sight, sound, smell, taste, touch — all are continuously variable and have multiple axes.
Indeed, there’s a great deal of overlap; you can build a (fuzzy) mental visual image of your surroundings through sound alone with a bit of training…and a musician can silently observe another musician and virtually hear the sounds being produced, and so on.
Claiming that any of this can be reduced to anything quantized, especially binary, outside of the context of computer programming or quantum physics or the like…well, it misses the point so spectacularly that I can’t even begin to imagine where you went off the rails.
If you truly think that you perceive the world in anything even remotely dualistic, then, not only are you in serious need of assistance from the mental health profession, but I pity you for all the beauty you’re missing out on in the world.
Cheers,
b&
By binary, I mean sensation vs no-sensation, good vs evil, high vs low, etc…
It is the absence of color in my eye that allows me to see colors just like it is the absence of sweetness in my tongue that allows me to feel sweetness. Everything we experience comes basically from that on/off process. That is how our ego is built, by contrast and discontinuity. And that is how ultimately we come to logically believe that life has its opposite in death.
What? No. If you can see through sunglasses, your ‘its the absence of color allows me to see color’ thing is disproven.
If you’ve got some tongue receptor occupied by a ‘sweet’ group, you’ve still got thousands of others that will work. And the signal that the occupied receptor sends out isn’t binary, either. The amount of chemical or electrical activity it produces can vary depending on what what its interacting with. So not even on an individual receptor level are human senses binary.
To say we perceive the world in a dual mode is nothing but a cultural construct. The human body does no such thing.
Electricity isn’t based on a binary process?
I’m starting to understand the problem, here.
You slept through each and every one of your science classes.
No, electricity isn’t even remotely binary. Even in binary computers, electricity isn’t binary; instead, signals are sent at one of two (arbitrary) voltages — but even then, each voltage can be (and is) varied over a not-trivial range.
A “1” might, for example, be represented by a seven-volt potential and a “0” by a five-volt potential…but a 6.5 volt potential will do just as well for a “1” and a 5.5 volt potential for a 0 — depending, of course, on the tolerances of the circuitry.
Sure, yes, electricity is quantized by way of the electron, and this can be demonstrated by way of the famous oil drop experiment. But electricity also very famously has wave properties, as demonstrated by the double-slit experiment when performed with a CRT in place of a light source.
You seriously need to go, right now, to your nearest community college and sign up for every remedial science class they offer. I can think of no better way to get up to speed on this stuff in a hurry. And, assuming the teacher is even remotely competent, you should have a lot of fun doing so.
Cheers,
b&
No, it’s the fact that the photoreceptors in your eyes have different spectral responsivenesses coupled with the way your brain interprets the signals the photoreceptors send down your optic nerve that let you see color.
And “absence of color” is an utterly meaningless concept. Even the rods in your eye are color-sensitive, and even colorblind people see color, just not as much of it.
The closest one can come to colorlessness is observation of an object with a flat spectral distribution; something that doesn’t actually exist (though you can get “close enough” for artistic photographic purposes). Even then, there’s still lots of color information — coming from the light source. Look at that same black-and-white photo in direct sunlight and in the shade, and the color will be different. And, even then, it’s not that there’s no color at all; it’s that no one color is present more than any other — it’s an equal mix of all colors that we (incorrectly, but conveniently) perceive as a lack of color.
Why you wish to convince yourself and others that the world is so limited is utterly beyond me. Really, I don’t get what it is you hope to achieve.
Cheers,
b&
“limited by the 2 absolutes.” >> i.e. the married bachelors.
Lots of ifs, buts, and maybes in this proposal. Instead of “presuppositional” theology (Plantinga), it sounds at times like “hyptotheticalist” theology, except at the end suddenly “the truth” that nature glorifies God leaps out at the end.
I kinda agree with JAC that the Holocaust (and I would add children’s cancer) is a big problem here. Christopher Hitchens confronted believers with this and asked if they could be “morally serious” in accepting this.
How convenient for the Discovery Institute to have a link with “Click here to donate” and to not have a link such as “Click here to comment.” It does not seems to me that they are really in favor of “teaching the controversy” when you have to, first, “allow the controversy.”
Hopefully one of the grant-holders will report back at the end and say “Great news, we’ve proved that Allah really exists”.
If God does not exist, wouldn’t that harmonize perfectly with randomness?
Throwing away money on pointless research harmonizes very well with gullibility.
See, the thing is, a god powerful enough to lurk in randomness is every bit as much in control of everything that is as you are when you’re driving your car down the freeway. If you set the cruise control and take your hands off the wheel, does that mean you’re not in control? Of course not — it just means the car is doing what you want without active input.
Which means that every time a priest rapes a child, it’s because this random god wants that child to be raped by that priest. Just as you could, trivially, at any time, put your hands back on the wheel and tap the brakes in order to avoid hitting that dog that strayed onto the freeway, a god with that type of power could, even more trivially and with even greater ease, remind the priest of his vows and thus prevent the rape.
I really don’t think Templeton honestly wants to go down that road….
Cheers,
b&
Water is essential. We can say it is a good thing in general for humans. But it also causes floods, drowning, moisture and thirst, things that are considered bad in general too.
God is like water. It does what it does. It is a conscious irreducible phenomenon.
And when that conscious irreducible phenomenon interacts with matter on a space/time plane like on earth, it leads to life and more and more self-aware organic machines. The problem with those machines is that when they have reached a point where they know they are thinking, they can’t see how their thinking is limited just like the eye can’t look at itself. But if they could see the structure that lies behind their thinking, they would see that it is limited by some boundaries. And those boundaries are at the same time what makes them think the way they think, the way their logic is shaped. It is binary process. A dual mode would say the oriental traditions. Under that dual mode, things appear in opposites, absolutes. That is why it seems to make a lot of sense to debate about free will and randomness. But it can’t come to our mind that these are semantic dual constructions of our way of thinking. I don’t pretend they are not real, I’m saying that they are the product of a certain context and that this context isn’t absolute.
Things can only appear random because they can also appear determined. You can,t have one without the other. But the “truth” about it lies beyond the spectrum of opposites. But language can’t describe this because words can only make sense on a dual mode. It is a byproduct of our dual grasping.
Bebop,
I don’t want you to feel mistreated or ignored, so I will just say I am dismissing your post as woo.
For one thing, it assumes facts not in evidence.
That we grasp the world on a certain mode is something that you could realize, and therefore experience. It would implicate that you grasp the world on another mode (a non-dual mode), which would make you able to compare and see for yourself that the average mode we are using isn’t absolute and influences more than we are able to imagine our conception of our self and the universe.
I think you just proved nonfreewillist’s point quite conclusively.
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“God is like water. It does what it does. It is a conscious irreducible phenomenon.”
And you know this how? L
It is a “known fact”,…in fact, “blindingly obvious..” that conscious irreducible phenomenon are observable, North of the North Pole.
On a non-dual mode, consciousness appears without the filter of the dual mode. On a dual mode, things work by opposition, contrast and discontinuity.
The uncreated nature of consciousness can only be seen when you are not under the conditions that makes you grasp the world through opposites. Uncreated means that it never began so it can never end, it is beyond opposition, beyond time. But since our intellect is shaped by a dual mode, it is hard to look at it outside that mode. And since science can only work on a dual mode, it is like the serpent that eats its tail. What is real is what can be measured and what can be measured tells us what is real.
That we depend on a certain organization of our senses and that it may implicates serious limitations about knowledge is of course a little detail…
Consciousness is an emergent property. It is caused.
He has done extensive testing with fire water.
What type of dressing would you like with that word salad?
b&
Snort.
Sorry — all out of snort dressing. Would you like some snicker dressing instead? It’s a bit saccharine, but….
b&
You are such a brat, Ben. L
Yeah, but I’m a brat with a…um…er…
…nevermind….
b&
No, it’s vital. For all known life forms on our planet.
What’s sad about Bebop’s message is that he has probably delivered it many times to unquestioning accolades, who nod and marvel, and feel “enlightened”. Never do they apply sentence-by-sentence deconstruction as you have done here.
Eighty Trillion synapses…and someone attempts to break it down to a simple understanding by citing misleading phenomena framed in ambiguous language, mention of water, consciousness within inanimate objects….truly criminal.
Never heard of the word analogy..?
Ever hear the phrase “False Analogy” or “Weak Analogy”?
The point was to show that the “good vs evil” or “randomness vs non-randomness” debate has its origin in our mode of perception, which is dual.
In order to make that clearer, i used the example of water which is essential to life which also means that it brings bad effects.
But like Occam brilliantly showed me, thirst and water have nothing in common…
There’s an infinite number of random distributions, all with different properties.
It ain’t dual.
Excellent! (Apart from the HTML!)
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Bebop, the only thing missing in your comment is the quote from the bible.
“just like the eye can’t look at itself.”
Bollocks!
Or do they not have mirrors where you come from?
;-P
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What I wouldn’t give to know the truth about what the powers to be at the Templeton Fund believe. Are they fooled by the man-made fiction that is god(s), or instead are they unbelievers who are trying to keep others fooled?
Are we as atheist, who see through the fiction, obliged to forward atheist enlightenment?
Hm.
This project essentially seems mere Attitude Bolstering. It doesn’t directly address the arguments about the non-existence of God, it merely focuses on generating additional ideas consistent with the original conjecture that there is a God.
This is the trope we all need to attack, and NEVER engage with:
“…advocates of secularism, naturalism, and new atheism? What are the strengths and weaknesses of these usages?”
By even discussing name calling like secularism, humanists, etc. the forces of evil win. Just another ideology like theirs. By labeling opponents they end up never having of discuss matters of fact.
In ideological battles the ones with the most money and biggest lies always win.
Best to ignore these name calling discussions. Engaging with them, brain science suggests, just reinforces the tropes of the enemies.
Never let your opponent name you.