Pat rocks! And he never seems discouraged by the evil slime of Muslim culture he battles.

It was a good response, I agree. I just think it's too bad that his wit was probably wasted upon the people whom he responded to.

I mean, if they're going to ask him a question so mind-blowingly stupid as to prove a negative, heedless of the fact that the burden of proof is upon those who are making the assertion that God exists, what are the chances that they actually got the point of his rejoinder.

I mean, they'd probably try to actually prove that Zeus and Apollo don't exist. "Oh, that's just a bunch of stories with no basis in fact or historical record. There. I proved they don't exist."

And they'd actually believe they did.

I'm struck by the spineless hypocrisy of theists (generally Christians and Muslims) who don't see that you can't use science to support the existence of a supernatural being, and so their efforts are an affront to the faith they allegedly hold.

DaveG, I'm not sure what you mean in that last comment. Can you explain?

Russ,

To use a crude analogy, they're coming to play in our sandbox.

"Blessed are they who believe without seeing." I don't support an evidence-free paradigm. But it admits things that are above and beyond the material world - magic. It defines faith.

[Disclosure: I don't believe in Gods, but the idea of them fascinates me and I think the world would be a bit more interesting if they existed - as long as they stayed out of our business and weren't the contemptible monsters we've invented.

I am a bit of a closet deist - I don't see how anything as awesome as the Universe can be purely random, but I'll stick to science.]

So when Creationists and IDers start think tanks and write books and try to hijack school boards, they are saying that their Faith in their Supernatural Master of the Universe is not strong enough to be sustained by what they believe, sans evidence, to be true.

I didn't originate this idea, but I believe it strongly. Penn Jillette's book God, No! explains beautifully how arrogant it is to impute supernatural agency to our world.

...Creotards and IDiots, rather.

"to be sustained" should read "to sustain".

It's official. I'm a thread killer.

@Dave G

No, you aren't. Just so many of us here believe the same way we fail to comment on the obvious.

Thanks, Jim. May you remain forever godless.

Didn't mean to make you feel like a thread killer, Dave! I wasn't at my computer.

The problem is that science isn't the only means of knowing. In fact, there are things that are also not known even by raw observation of deductive reason.

How does science prove that reason is a sound tool? Reason's validity is necessary for scientific experiments to begin. Reason of course can't prove it.

How can science prove that nature is governed by causes? Well, it can't. It's necessary to assume that nature is uniform before we even begin to investigate in science.

Disclaimer: I'm a theist and am neither an "IDiot" or "Creotard".

I agree with what you just wrote. But I'm fairly sure that things will continue to fall down, not up. I can't prove there are no black geese.

Why is it that the alleged Creators of the Universe are at worst murderous thugs (some people actually read the Bible / Koran / Torah) and at best noble humans with magical powers? If something that is, or has, a mind is the Creator, it would be a cruel joke if it was as pathetically capricious as we describe it (I choose to live in a better universe than that). And why FFS would it care who sleeps with whom and have some jingoistic fetish for the USA? Disgusting.

/rant

The perceived absurdity of a Reduced God is not an argument for anything knowable, but it's a clear indicator of what to believe in.

I don't doubt that things will keep falling down. I do think (know) nature is uniform. Its uniformity is not something we can know by science or reason, and the system of reasoning is also nothing we acquire from experience. My point is that science (or any empirical evidence) is neither the beginning nor the whole of our knowledge.

As for the rest, it's tough for me to explain something I don't think is true to begin with.

What's a Reduced God?

A Reduced God is an Anthropomorphic one.

OK, I bite. What is there beyond empiricism? Perception? I'd agree with that. What else?

I agree, but an anthropomorphic god is not the God of the Catholic philosophers/theologians. I can't really speak for any other religion.

What is there beyond empiricism? The first principles that I was mentioning: the uniformity of nature, that systematic reasoning is valid, that true statements can't contradict each other, that something is either true or false, the laws of geometry and mathematics, and most importantly and yet so simple: that truth and knowledge actually exist. The empiricist is logically committed to not being able to know any of these.

If by perception, you mean sense perception, I'd actually put that in the same tent as empiricism. But you may very well mean something else.

Russ, I'd like to continue this discussion without hijacking Amy's thread. Shall I ask Amy to pass an email to you?

Sure, feel free to e-mail me.

Amy, if I do start talking about the Kardashians, censor away.

Amy says keep going here.

Funny, but isn't the Catholic God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? Sure looks human to me. In his image and all that. Is there a different one?

Apparently you're talking about epistemology. Sounds a little like navel-gazing to me, but can you point me to any texts or websites?

Yes, that's exactly what I meant about perception. Qualia fascinate me. We all agree what red is, but does it even look the same to all of us?

"The problem is that science isn't the only means of knowing."

I see this a lot, but I never seem to see it supported.

Please do. Especially when you get to uncertainty factors in a method of discovery which does NOT include rigorous observation.

If a Kardashian interacts with a thought, do they annihilate? Can we drop the Kardashians on Syria?

http://www.sadtrombone.com/

Why is it navel-gazing? Yes it's epistemology, but all epistemology does (or any philosophy of x does) is ask what are the logical parameters and conditions of x, in this case, knowledge. Logical scrutiny of anything is acceptable until you hit contradictions or unknowns. That's when you've hit the limit and start excessively scrutinizing. Website-wise I don't know, but empiricism has been defended by Hume, Locke, Hobbes, Hawking, and Freud, and critiqued by rationalists like Descartes, Leibniz, C.S. Lewis, Plato, and Einstein somewhat.

Empiricism claims that all knowledge is reducible to observation, but none of the first principles are observations nor are they inferences from observations. On the complete contrary, they are preconditions of observation. If empiricism is true, then the truth of the first principles disappear—first principles necessary for the success of science and reasoning. Could you pragmatically say that they exist? You could, and you’d practically have to, but there will be no ground for them. …and there is an f word for believing in something without a defense.

No, an image intended to invoke ideas of what God is like is on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The Catholic tradition has always held that the best we can do to explain God is by metaphor.

Radwaste, I did support it and gave examples of things not known by science.

Interesting. Those first principles sound pretty handy, which IMHO doesn't bode well for empiricism.

Peace out, unless someone else posts.

"Things not known by science."

It's turtles all the way down.

I understand your point, but in a pragmatic sense it doesn't matter. To my knowledge, no-one knows whether mathematics is purely a mental construct or a feature of the universe imprinted on our neurons which affect our thoughts. Zeno's paradox says you can always cut in half, but the universe seems to stop at the Planck length. Either way, the universe typically behaves as mathematics predicts even though we don't know why it should.

No, Russ, you did not - you only thought you have.

Because you haven't acknowledged one of the fundamentals of measurement: uncertainty. It's compensation, along with the citation in the scientific method of the means of observation, for the limitations of measuring devices.

Your position appears to be based on the appeal to ignorance I find from deists, claiming essentially that we cannot do anything useful because (cue breathlessness), "We Don't Know ___™!". Alternately, I find what little you've posted here akin to arguments about the definition of "one".

You can't be using a consistent definition for "knowing" in claiming "there are other methods...".

Are you clear on the conceptual differences between a standard and a measurement? Are you also clear that cause and effect can be demonstrated by comparing principles?

I'm not playing silly logic games. I'm citing the method of observation which has provided you and me with every imaginable convenience, and to cite some examples, has shot a satellite through Saturn's rings, ferreted out which nuclide to use as a standard for atomic clocks and found which gene carries a prion responsible for Fatal Familial Insomnia. All by simply observing and recording what happens, making a change, recording the change, ad infinitum, checking for fallacies the entire time.

There are an awful lot of people who don't have any idea of what is done commercially in this country today, much less the extent of the art of investigation.

Yes, it is still a mystery why quanta exist. To analogize, not knowing why the seal balances the beach ball on its nose doesn't keep us from selling tickets to see that, OR understand WHAT is happening.

"cause and effect can be demonstrated by comparing principles"

I wanna know how that works.

Radwaste, I'm afraid you haven't shown why what I said is untrue. Instead of dismissing my argument because it looks like other arguments that happen to contain a flawed assumption, show me where this specific argument goes wrong and why. In fact, I didn't say this, and don't agree with it: "claiming essentially that we cannot do anything useful because (cue breathlessness), "We Don't Know ___™!" "

In English, the word knowledge does not have a univocal definition. If knowledge is solely justified true belief, then my knowledge about a particular cause and a particular effect is not really knowledge, because what's presented to us is the empirical data, not the logical cause, and for that reason, there's a degree of uncertainty. The inference can become stronger, but will always be prone to some error. However, I do know that 2+2=4. I know this through demonstration. Now, come first principles. I simply intuit these things. In all cases, knowledge is clarity. In some cases, that clarity must be deduced and in some cases that clarity is simply intuited. In the first case of "knowledge", it isn't totally clear, but we still call it knowledge, and that knowledge is the most useful in a practical sense. In sum, I am not using the same definition. I am claiming that the practical knowledge we have, though absolutely useful, is not as strong as the knowledge we obtain from pure reason.

I agree, but an anthropomorphic god is not the God of the Catholic philosophers/theologians.

Really? Cause according to 'Catholic philosophers/theologians' god had a human body, and a penis, and ate food and wore clothing. Sounds anthropomorphic to me.

No wait, anthropomorphising is applying human characteristics. Technically they applied the entirety of humanity. What should we call that? I vote 'hubris'

No, you're talking about the incarnation: God becoming man...meaning he wasn't man. If you call that hubris, it's a huge misunderstanding of the theology. Becoming human was coming down to man's level: becoming temporal and finite. Men are not omnipotent, omniscient, perfect; God is.

So an all knowing god was unaware of the human experience? Wouldnt that preclude 'all knowing'

Also the bible said god walked with man, and talked with man, and appeared in human form to which ever patriarch was Lots cousin, Abraham I think.

Also the bible has god describing himself as jealous, and loving, kind, and all sorts of other emotions felt by humans

God didn't enter a human form because he was fascinated with humans and wanted to learn how they think. He did so so that humans could learn about God. Just to logically analyze it, to say "x appeared in form y" implies that x is otherwise something else, in this case not a human.

Without exact citations, I don't know. But in general, walking with men is figurative. God doesn't walk anymore than he needs to take a nap after 6 days of creating time.

By the logic in the last bit, it seems dogs are also humans. After all they are mammals and have sensations, don't we? Unless of course having some shared traits doesn't entail identical natures.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? -- Epicurus [341–270 B.C.]

Now tell me the exact area of a circle. The formula is ϖR² (PiR²)

So if you say that the diameter of a circle is four feet the area is a 3.141*(2x2) is 12.564. But 3.14159265359*(2*2) = 12.5663706144 feet.

But usually that type of resolution and the difference is not significant in human life.

I will not bow down to someone that can not prove his existence. I especially will never believe in god, magic or the rest. It is a form of technology we haven't seen and is previously unknown to us.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke [1917-2008]

Is God able to create round triangles? Is God able to create numbers greater than 9 and less than 2? Is God able to make a proposition true and false? Is God able to reveal the universe's first married bachelor? If not, Epicurus, then why call him God?

Please clearly explain your point about differences in area that are negligible to human life. How is it connected to what I've said about truth, knowledge, first principles, etc., or if it strengthens the atheist's argument, how?

I can't help but think the empiricist, Epicurus being one of the first, is the greatest magician of them all. With a simple spell, we have a justified belief from nothing justified.

Men are not omnipotent, omniscient, perfect; God is. -- Russ at September 23, 2013 9:28 AM

Then please tell me why Epicurus is wrong.

Or even better, please tell me why humans can't regenerate limbs?

DaveG:

If you suspect that radioaactive decay laws are subject to effects found in local space, and you measure the progress of such decay by observing the effect such emissions have on their surroundings, you can then look around for exceptions that would deny the principle. If you look at Supernova 1987A, ~160,000 light-years distant, and see the same progression, you can confirm the effect of radiation on a gas at that distance, thus validating one more feature of the observation that radioactive materials in decay affect their surroundings in certain ways.

Most of my citations of scientific investigation fall on blind eyes, because people generally have no idea of the state of the arts. We've been able to image individual atoms for over 15 years, and this sort of discovery is not done by people who take anything for granted.

Like this: "God didn't enter a human form because..."

Don't know what that is. It isn't reasoning, because you're ascribing a motive to a being you haven't shown exists in any form.

Hint: if you use the word, "creation", you really don't know what it means. You can't show me an example, because everything around us, and everything we DO, is conversion. Nobody gets a pass on the principle of the conservation of matter and energy just because they believe a person they can relate to is in charge.

Jim P.,

Epicurus is wrong for the same reason God cannot make round corners. The end of human evil would be the end of human free will, a necessary ingredient for men to do good. God cannot break logical impossibilities, and that does not reduce his omnipotence. What is logically possible IS what is possible.

And I don't know what the ability or inability to regenerate limbs has to do with the theist's or the atheist's argument.

Radwaste,

What? That discussion was not about the existence of God, it was about whether the Christian tradition holds an anthropomorphic treatment of God. In that case, God's existence is assumed for the sake of argument. When critics of Christianity say that Christians treat God anthropomorphically, do they first need to show that God exists? No. In fact, the critic is often an atheist. God's existence is just granted as a hypothetical.

"God's existence is just granted as a hypothetical."

I do not grant that, for two reasons:

1) The God™ postulated is actually an avatar built in the mind of the believer by their understanding of a Bible™. This is easy to see as their discussion will defend Bible™ content, not address practical issues. The ™ symbol is there to signify the use of a generally-accepted version as the center of discussion by a group.

2) The entity commonly described always exhibits anthropomorhic qualities, and there is zero (the engineering "zero", not a colloquialism) reason to start there.

If you wish to debate the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin ("God didn't enter a human form because..."), that's your business, but it's no more meaningful than arguing the method of propulsion Superman uses to fly. Assuming Superman exists doesn't help at all, even if it is a comforting fiction.