I'm not sure how atheism is radical scepticism. What's radical about not accepting a claim because it has no evidence? Think about all the things you've ever not believed, you use the same method of assessment for all of them. Never is it radical to simply say "I don't believe that because no proof or rational argument has been given". It's almost like you think we should just believe any claim just because it's popular or originated a long time ago.
Not at all. In fact I went through a long period in my life when I was happy to just assume God doesn't exist and be done with it. If I was arguing that we should just believe any claim just because "it's popular or originated a long time ago" I'd surely be advocating a specific religion, which I most assuredly am not. I'm not advocating religion at all and personally have no use for it. We simply differ in opinion; you think there's no rational argument in favor of the existence of God, and I strongly disagree. Rational arguments are given; it's just that, being atheists, you don't see them as rational arguments. I'm not claiming that anything I've observed proves the existence of God; I only claim that they offer enough evidence to leave a substantial amount of doubt. Enough doubt in my opinion that I'd be committing intellectual dishonesty if I were to say "I don't believe there's a God."
Okay let me address this problem of supernatural realms and transcendental beings. First of all if something manifests in any way at all in our universe (including creating it) then it is not supernatural and therefore should be detectable by scientific investigation. If it is not detectable by scientific investigation then it is indistinguishable from "nothing" and is not worth discussing because nothing at all can be known about it.
I think we have detected it by scientific investigation. We just maybe don't recognize it for what it is. Of course he manifests himself in this universe. At least part of him is built into this universe. But I believe there's reason to think that he also exists outside of this universe, in a realm we don't currently have access to, at least by modern scientific means. When we're able to access that realm it will be part of natural world, but as things stand we can't seem to access it, which makes it, for all inten
No god claim I have come across involves the god or gods NEVER manifesting in some way or interfering in some way with our universe. Why would anyone bother imagining or promoting such a god. It's like me saying "there's a god who lives in a supernatural realm outside of our space and time and who never manifests or interferes in our universe". Do you not see that the god I have imagined existing is completely indistinguishable from it not existing at all? I have not made any progress of any kind by imagining this god. In fact I have simply raised more questions such as "how do I know or come to believe that this god exists?" and "how can I prove it exists if it never manifests in our universe?" Unless you're a proponent of something else like the ontological argument (and I seriously hope not!) then a dead end has been reached. I cannot expect anyone to discuss this god with me!
You can imagine supernatural worlds all you want but put it to good use and write a novel about it. That's where these kinds of things belong until someone can show there is a supernatural realm. Hopefully you can see now though that nobody could ever show that because if they did then the realm is no longer supernatural, it is natural. It's a common misconception that rejection of these sorts of things is close-minded. Not so at all, and quite the opposite in fact.
I think we have detected it by scientific investigation. We just maybe don't recognize it for what it is. Of course he manifests himself in this universe. At least part of him is built into this universe. But I believe there's reason to think that he also exists outside of this universe, in a realm we don't currently have access to, at least by modern scientific means. When we're able to access that realm it will be part of natural world, but as things stand we can't seem to access it, which makes it, for all intents and purposes, supernatural. And since God is currently beyond our scientific reach he is also supernatural. He can really only be discussed within a philosophical framework.
Perhaps I should have said metaphysical rather than supernatural. I don't think we really disagree on most of what you bring up here.
I do fully intend to write a novel about it once I have all the kinks of my personal philosophy worked out.
It is close-minded to accept claims without good reason.
Then it's all a matter of what you consider "good reason" then. Seems rather subjective by nature to me.
I'll say it again: non-acceptance of a claim is not a claim in itself.
No, it's not; but you're trying very hard to demonstrate here that there's no good reason to believe in God.
That is a claim, and as long as you keep arguing, you keep making it.
I have read the God Delusion and I often hear people misunderstanding what Dawkins has said. Dawkins has often said that the only thing that could be taken as an argument in favour of a god is the fine tuning argument. He says could because it could also be taken as nothing. In reality all the fine-tuning argument says is that if things were different then things would be different.
I'm not misinterpreting what he says at all. I fully understand what his intent in the passage is. I only used his stating of the argument as a reference because it was the easiest thing I had on hand. He goes on to attempt to dispute it. His conclusion is incomplete, though. The reason it's such a compelling argument in the first place is that if things were different, conscious life wouldn't exist at all.
I could be wrong but are you implying that the purpose of the universe is for our existence? How could anyone know this? Our existence proves nothing except that we exist. Our universe appears fine-tuned because if it were different then it would not exist. But so what? I assume you accept the theory of evolution as scientific fact. Creationists use the same argument against that. They say "look how finely tuned animals and plants are, they must have been designed". And we say "look how well adapted animals and plants are, they must have evolved". Add actual evidence for evolution and creationism becomes vacuous.
The existence of conscious life, yes. Not necessarily
our existence. No one could ever
know this, hence the room for doubt and my status as an agnostic. Our existence
proves nothing except that we exist, but the nature of our existence gives compelling evidence that an intelligent creator is responsible for it. Let's remember, proof and evidence are not the same thing.
You're looking at our universe from the point of view that it had some goal. Like there was some purpose and then our universe magically appeared against all odds and managed to fulfil that purpose. It matters not what the odds of our particular universe appearing were. It did appear and we are in it. Just like humans were not the goal of evolution, we were not the purpose of the big bang and the evolution of the universe. Just like our planet was not the purpose of the sun forming. All these fine-tuning arguments are quite frankly laughable if you take a moment to think about what they're actually saying.
Again, I'm not arguing that humans were God's intentional goal, but conscious life. Beings capable of observing and appreciating his creation. I'm not sure if you misunderstand me, but I'm not arguing that God is constantly putting his hands in our affairs or even in the universe at large, fine-tuning this or that to make sure things come out right. I believe that he just set the controls in the very beginning, knowing what he wanted to accomplish and how to accomplish it, and has existed as part of the universe ever since.
Please see my response in my previous post.
Well, I obviously disagree with your previous post. You say you believe God not existing is more logical than God existing. I don't agree with that at all and feel I have articulated my reasoning well enough. Got a real rebuttal?
Ability to observe and complexity? Really? How about the complexity of the creator who managed to design all of this from nothing? How complex must he be? And he came about by chance? If he does exist and he created our universe then he must have evolved in some other universe and unfortunately we have an infinite regression.
Well, I disagree about this as well. God created himself, just as he created everything else. It's the only logical conclusion one can draw, if there is a God. And it was more an act of will than an act of chance. The whole thrust of my opinion is that consciousness as we know it is just the most advanced yet expression of the tendency of the universe's components to react to each other. I'm sure we're both agreed that consciousness isn't something that just happened; it's the result of a long process of evolution that started, really, with the birth of the universe. So those earliest interactions of matter and energy can be regarded as a very primitive form of consciousness. That primitive consciousness is the earliest manifestation in the universe of the mind of God.
The existence of human beings cannot possibly be used as some kind of proof of a god.
No, it can't. I wonder if you're paying attention.
We know how we evolved, at one point we numbered some 2000 individuals and faced extinction. We could easily not have survived! If we had become extinct like 99% of all other species ever to exist, then the universe would still be here, going happily along without us.
And another species, sooner or later, would almost certainly have taken our place. If you believe conscious life is possible elsewhere in the universe you can't possibly argue with that.
It's your choice to throw "why" in but that does not mean that it is necessary to answer it. My question is why ask "why" in the first place? We each chose our own meaning to our lives but that does not mean there is an intrinsic meaning. All our meanings are subjective and personal and that's fine but don't get carried away and place a meaning on the existence of the universe. Is it logical to assume it has a meaning? Not in my opinion. Why would it?
As I've stated, it's not logical to assume anything without proof.
Not being scientific certainly does lead to not being rational in my opinion. If you choose to investigate the world around you in a non-scientific way then you will end up simply imagining up rationalisations for observations. What good is that? Science is the single most reliable way to determine facts about our universe. It is not a thing though it is merely an extension of logic, reason and our own natural way of determining what is true and what is false. If you're shopping for fruit and testing for ripeness by squeezing it do you squeeze one and say "that's soft hence all these are soft"? No you squeeze more until you find a nice one. That IS science. You are following the scientific process whether you like it or not. Observation, evidence, logic and reason: They are human traits and even in animals we see it. It is not a magical invention to be wary of, it is how we should investigate the world because it is consistently reliable (when done correctly) and it is self-adjusting.
Indeed, I've never argued that science isn't an extremely useful tool for understanding the universe. But in the end it's nothing more than a product of the human mind. I'm simply arguing that there are other things worth considering that just that which we can observe scientifically. To suggest that science is the only path to understanding is narrow-minded.
What other means of investigation is there? And how would we determine if it is a good means without using science to do so?! It's crazy to suggest that there are other ways of investigating our universe. Any new method would just be an extension of science and science would self-adjust to incorporate it. It's very simple actually.
It is possible to make use of our faculties of reason and logic without invoking science. Philosophers have been proving that for thousands of years.
Also science is not a source of evidence; it is a way of investigating evidence.
Right and the evidence I'm speaking of can't be investigated by science, at least as it exists now, hence my defining it as supernatural.
A god, perhaps the most complex being we can imagine, springing into existence, from nothing, by chance is probably the most unlikely event I can think of. It would be more likely for a cow to spontaneously transform into a tractor.
We don't know how complex he is, and we have no way of knowing if his existence is a matter of chance.
A few simple particles coming together in the right way to encourage the emergence of a great chasm dotted with such particles arranged in various ways with no plan, purpose or general aim is, I think, not that unlikely at all! In fact I think if all the ingredients are there then why is it so unlikely that a universe could arise? We live in one don't we? Do we see any gods around? No, which supports how unlikely they are?
The problem is that something had to start those particles moving to come together in the right way to... etc. Sooner or later, moving backwards in time, you have something that happened completely on its own, with no event preceding it to cause it. That seems unlikely to me. In fact, it doesn't make sense. That's why invoking the supernatural seems like the best explanation to me.
And irreducible complexity actually would be a massive blow to evolution and in fact is one of the only things I can think of that would call evolution into question. Just as well nothing has ever been discovered that shows this mysterious property; just what you would expect if evolution were the case.
Again, I fear you may have snoozed a bit while reading my post. I state quite directly that I consider the irreducible complexity argument to be bunk.
Out of two possible occurrences happening without previous action you say the one that made the complex being is more likely than the one that made the random arrangement of matter?
Yes.
What created the big bang? Nobody knows for sure. Why, in the name of Zeus' beard, would one ever assume that it was "supernatural"? It created the universe, hence it is natural.
Well, because within the very framework on which science is based, it is impossible. We would have to radically redefine "science" for it to even possibly make sense.
Pure agnostics simply say they do not know. Not knowing and not believing are different. See my previous response.
All atheists are well and truly in the "none-belief" camp they don't just lean towards it. None-belief says nothing about what you do believe and nothing about what you claim to know.
I would like it if you could address all the problems I pointed out in my other post post because there are many that you never addressed here. I know it was a massive post but on some of these things I think you're way off and I think I have successfully countered or corrected everything I responded to.
Well, I feel I have. You main argument seems to be that you don't believe in God simply because you don't see any valid evidence for the existence of God. I disagree. I hope that covers it.