Why I don't recommend Dawkins?????

[_Buffalo]

I appreciate the effort that you and your fellows are making to help us appreciate the intelligence of theistic thinkers. However, I'd prefer to simply examine arguments which address the problem with any degree of efficacy, (aside from the obvious argument, of course). I don't particularly feel the need to venerate anyone today.

Are you telling me that the veneration of the Angelic Doctor is not a regular part of your daily devotions? What is this world coming to?

There are icons available, you know.

I'm still psyching myself up to an experiment in Athena worship. Maybe I'll try St. Thomas later. :p

[_Phillip]

I'm still psyching myself up to an experiment in Athena worship. Maybe I'll try St. Thomas later. :p

I have to confess that Athena cuts a better figure than Thomas does (unless your taste runs in the monkish direction). Plus she can fight.

[_Some Schmo]

The arguments aren’t bad if the goal is just to show the existence of something necessary, but being necessary doesn’t make you God. I could take these arguments and build a naturalistic worldview from them.

That's what makes them weak arguments for god, no?

[_Chap]

Running through this thread since my last post, I have to say that as a person whose interest in theology started quite a long time ago, and as a person who concedes that modern theologians include some very clever and subtle people, I still have to say that I feel that the kinds of arguments referred to above relate to historical religious belief only as a kind of very abstract, prolonged, and terribly polite death-rattle.

Those who wish to divert themselves with this kind of thing have my respect, to the extent that it is a very demanding pastime, open only to the very clever. But I sure bet it isn't going to generate any more Bach B minor masses or Sistine Chapels.

[_Phillip]

But I sure bet it isn't going to generate any more Bach B minor masses or Sistine Chapels.

Sadly, I think you may be right.

[_Ren]

I've split off the Schmo <-> Hoops stuff here:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20557

Ren

[_EAllusion]

Whether or not the "who designed the designer?" question is a good objection to a design argument depends on the form it takes.

There are design arguments that go like this:

An object with properties P is (likely) designed.
Object A (say life) has P
Therefore, A is (likely) designed.

And that designer must be (or likely is) God.

Now, if God also has P, then it is perfectly appropriate to ask who designed God. The first premise in the argument says God must be.

If the theist objects and says God is a necessary being, that is a bad response for two important reasons. The God of their abstract theology might be necessary, but that doesn't mean the designer that this argument allows them to conclude exists is. So they would have to actually demonstrate the designer they are calling God actually is necessary. And if they are able to demonstrate the necessary existence of God, then they wouldn't need a a tepid argument like their design argument in the first place.

[_EAllusion]

What, specifically, can it account for, per the supernaturalists?

The contingent universe, the uniformity of nature, the nature of consciousness, other minds, properly functioning cognitive faculties.

An account that trivially defines the solution of why something is a certain way into the properties of an object to account for it is not a meaningful account.

Why do eyeballs have the features they do?

lightning

How so?

lightning has a property - let's call it eyeness - that makes eyeballs exist the way they are.

Do you see how this isn't a meaningful explanation? When someone asserts that the God hypothesis doesn't account for anything, they are saying that God explains things like lightning does in this example. And they're almost always right. That definitely includes saying nature is uniform because God desires nature to be uniform, etc. etc. It is not an explanation so much as a fiat definition masquerading as an explanation. It's God of the gaps. The same trick can be applied to the universe itself with more metaphysical parsimony. Why is nature uniform? Well, that's just a brute fact of the universe.

[_Phillip]

EAllusion,

Are there any kinds of potential observations about the world or the human person that you would consider as pointing towards the existence of God? Or is God just the kind of thing for which evidence of any sort simply isn't possible. I'm honestly curious what you think. Wouldn't the brute fact approach work for practically any conceivable observation short of God hitting us with a two by four?

[_MrStakhanovite]

The same trick can be applied to the universe itself with more metaphysical parsimony. Why is nature uniform? Well, that's just a brute fact of the universe.

I don't know of anyone serious who says nature is uniform because that is the way God wants it or just that uniformity is a brute fact.

If the theist objects and says God is a necessary being, that is a bad response for two important reasons.

Okay.

The God of their abstract theology might be necessary, but that doesn't mean the designer that this argument allows them to conclude exists is.

It's been a while since I've read something that argues along the lines of " X is designed, so the designer is God." I would hope a Theist would clearly define what they mean by God, what are God's attributes and why does God have these attributes. The Argument from Design is a poor place to start from.

And if they are able to demonstrate the necessary existence of God, then they wouldn't need a a tepid argument like their design argument in the first place.

I meant they show that something necessary exists, not that Theism is necessary.