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Tarski wrote:I probably shouldn't bother asking this before I get around to reading the book (maybe this weekend). But, what will I find in chapter 3? How does he deal with the arguments he called weak? Not at all?

The only reason I would read it, is to find out Dawkin’s views, but you wouldn’t gain much insight from his comments into science of philosophy.

He divides arguments for God up into two broad camps (a priori and a posterior), then starts with Aquinas’ five ways, which he claims is vacuous. He combines the first 3 ways, takes about a paragraph to explain infinite regress, claims omniscience and omnipotence are mutually incompatible, takes the fourth way and counters it by saying “there must exist a pre-eminently peerless stinker, and we call him God.” and finishes up with the Telelogical argument.

He spends the most time (a few pages), on the ontological argument, then takes on Arguments from Beauty, Personal Experience, From Scripture, and at the end, deals with a little bit of Bayesian arguments from some risk management consultant I’ve never heard of.

Tarski wrote:Second, I am curious as to which arguments for God's existence you personally find strong-- if any. One of the ontological arguments?

I like Ontological arguments, but I use them for building possible metaphysical systems for a Naturalist worldview. It’s a good place for a Theist to start, but there is a lot of work to be done after that argument. There are two broad strategies that I have respect for:

Reformed Epistemology: I think the project launched by Wolterstorff and Plantinga has promise, probably because I like the route they take to try and ground beliefs contra evidentialism, but I don’t think either of them have come to close to establishing what they’ve set out to do.

Neo-Classical: Another strategy I think is on the right track is Swineburne’s original idea to take all the classical deductive arguments from history, and turn them into inductive arguments and constructs a cumulative argument for the probability of God.

I don’t think there is going to ever be a silver bullet type argument that can achieve what Theists want, so I don’t think there is a strong argument for the existence of God out there (nor do I think any good Theistic Philosophers think that either), the most profitable way seems to be building a slow case that accumulates strength over time, and the only two projects I see doing that now is Reformed Epistemology and Classical arguments construed inductively.

Tarski wrote:Finally, do you still want to talk about the logical status of mathematical induction? I have some more thoughts. I also talked to a logician today to see if he could identify any misunderstandings I might have and to get comments about the status of mathematical induction (or what we ended up calling the meta-mathematical status of mathematical induction). It was a short but interesting conversation.

Please, tell me everything.

Is Richard Dawkins a Mormon? He recently endorsed a view of Gods that's remarkably similar to Mormon cosmology:

“Certainly,” Professor Dawkins replies. “It’s highly plausible that in the universe there are God-like creatures.”

He raises his hand, just in case a reader thinks he’s gone around a religious bend. “It’s very important to understand that these Gods came into being by an explicable scientific progression of incremental evolution.”

Could they be immortal? The professor shrugs.

“Probably not.” He smiles and adds, “But I wouldn’t want to be too dogmatic about that.”

So Dawkins thinks it's "highly plausible" that God-like beings have evolved from a mortal existence, and that these beings live elsewhere in the universe. Maybe they live on a planet near Kolob?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/scien ... ted=1&_r=1

Personally, I have no interest in the book, not even to find out Dawkins's views. I like what he's written on evolution, but even then, at the same time I read The Blind Watchmaker I also read E. Larson's book on evolution and I thought it was far better; one of my favorite books of all time in fact. I even think the latter superior for countering religion.

I don't dislike Dawkins though. I love his arrogance and the way he's pissed off so many Christians. Also, to an extent, I appreciate the fact that he's won atheism so many converts. Though very superficial outside of his area of expertise, I would bet that to the extent that he's right, he's far, far more right than the average Christian is who wins a convert. It's a flaw in me, I admit, but I have a soft spot for atheism winning converts by tolerable to bad reasoning if for no other reason than as revenge against Christianity for winning so many converts by outright lies and fraud.

My God I am pissed. I just typed up a page or two of stuff in reply, hit post and got some "general error". I had to hit the back button on the browser and now all I typed is gone!
Now I have to do it again. I am going to condense it this time.
It was mostly about mathematical induction.

crap!

I'll come back to this in an hour or two. Too pissed right now.

shorter version:


1. I was reading one of my books of mathematical logic just to get back in the mood so to speak. The first chapter is about first order propositional calculus of course. But he does things using the notion of a "statement form". Anyway, he prove some propositions which are useful for producing formal deductive arguments, testing their validity etc.
Now 2nd order stuff is much later and Peano's postulates still later.
Nevertheless, he uses mathematical induction to prove a couple of his propositions. It is not introduced as an axiom and it certainly isn't part of the formal calculus.
The proposition thus proved are however then used to produce valid deductions within the system.

Does this seem fishy to you or worry you in any way?
Note: We produce a valid deduction which we know is valid only because we have applied a meta-theorem that was proved by plain old mathematical induction.


..................

2. Now, let bring up something really simple just to make sure about intuitions and warm us up etc.

Suppose for the sake of argument that there is a universe we are considering that contains only a line of equally spaced glowing cubes stretching out from some point in a certain direction. There is the first one, second one, third one and on and on. A denumerable ordered set.

You can take the above as premise A0 if you like but in any case consider the following:

A1: The first cube glows red.

A2. Consecutive cubes glow the same color as each other.
_________________
C: Every cube glows red.

Does C follow from the premises A1 and A2 with full logical force--the same force as a modus ponens?
Nevermind how one would determine the truth of A2. Just take it as true.

In other words, could C be false and yet A1 and A2 be true?

MrStakhanovite wrote:Neo-Classical: Another strategy I think is on the right track is Swineburne’s original idea to take all the classical deductive arguments from history, and turn them into inductive arguments and constructs a cumulative argument for the probability of God.

I'm currently reading Swinburne's 'Was Jesus God?' and I'm curious what you think of it (if you have read it). Although I find his arguments interesting, the book would be more compelling if it was coming from someone who wasn't already familiar with Christian dogmas rather than an ex-post justification of those beliefs.

The "cumulative argument" approach pretty much describes my journey out of the LDS church. Rather than one decisive proof against Mormonism, it was the gradual accumulation of arguments against it that finally led me to abandon that faith as extremely implausible. In a somewhat similiar way, it is the convergence of many arguments for the existence of God that has helped me to remain a theist.

Phillip wrote:I'm currently reading Swinburne's 'Was Jesus God?' and I'm curious what you think of it (if you have read it). Although I find his arguments interesting, the book would be more compelling if it was coming from someone who wasn't already familiar with Christian dogmas rather than an ex-post justification of those beliefs.

I've never read it, so I'm afraid I comment.

Phillip wrote:The "cumulative argument" approach pretty much describes my journey out of the LDS church. Rather than one decisive proof against Mormonism, it was the gradual accumulation of arguments against it that finally led me to abandon that faith as extremely implausible. In a somewhat similiar way, it is the convergence of many arguments for the existence of God that has helped me to remain a theist.

I think that method better models how humans came to conclusions about worldviews, and it would be to the Mormon Apologist’s benefit to understand that.

I have less respect for theistic justification than Stak. In particular, I see the evidential arguments proposed in its favor as uniformly bad. And the fact that theology as a discipline takes the standard arguments seriously I think adds implausibility to the prospects of justifying theism. If there were good arguments in its favor, the best thinkers embracing a diverse array of bad to wretched ones would be a highly unlikely state of affairs.

Tarski wrote:Does this seem fishy to you or worry you in any way?
Note: We produce a valid deduction which we know is valid only because we have applied a meta-theorem that was proved by plain old mathematical induction.

I’m comfortable with that.

Tarski wrote:2. Now, let bring up something really simple just to make sure about intuitions and warm us up etc.

Suppose for the sake of argument that there is a universe we are considering that contains only a line of equally spaced glowing cubes stretching out from some point in a certain direction. There is the first one, second one, third one and on and on. A denumerable ordered set.

You can take the above as premise A0 if you like but in any case consider the following:

A1: The first cube glows red.

A2. Consecutive cubes glow the same color as each other.
_________________
C: Every cube glows red.

Does C follow from the premises A1 and A2 with full logical force--the same force as a modus ponens?

I want to think on this for a bit. At first blush, I want to say that the conjunction of A0-2 would entail C:

Γ = {There is a universe X that contains only a line of equally spaced glowing cubes stretching out from some point Y in direction Z is a denumerable ordered set. The first cube glows red. Consecutive cubes glow the same color as each other.}

S1 = There is a universe X that contains only a line of equally spaced glowing cubes stretching out from some point Y in direction Z is a denumerable ordered set. The first cube glows red. Consecutive cubes glow the same color as each other.

S2 = Every cube glows red

I'm thinking S1 and ~S2 are inconsistent, but I want to sit down and write this out.

EAllusion wrote:I have less respect for theistic justification than Stak. In particular, I see the evidential arguments proposed in its favor as uniformly bad.

Can you unpack this a little bit? When you say evidential arguments, do you mean the strategy Craig often does, where he points at feature X and says the best explanation of X is God? X being objective morality, the empty tomb, the contingent universe, etc, etc