Bloggist plagiarizes me

[_EAllusion]

However, THIS ISN'T CIRCULAR. Why? I'm not attributing some self-repeating, begging the question attribute to matter. I'm attributing the characteristic to an all-powerful, all-knowing Creator God who is outside of the rules of that matter. I'm not making two assertions that end up back at the same point. I'm making two assertions about two different entities. It can't be circular unless I come back around to the same point. God is on a different plane than matter so anything attributed to God can't be circular. You're next objection will be, "Well then God is a cop-out explanation for EVERYTHING!". Yes! Exactly!

Saying the rest of existence of uniform is so because God is inexplicably law-like and wanted to create a law-like universe is no better than saying existence is uniform because that is a fundamental property of it (again, it's worse). If that doesn't float your boat, say there exists an extrauniversal object, like God but lacking qualities like intelligence, defined as law-like and having a property such that it results in the rest of existence being law-like. Problem solved. Again, that is a tailor-made explanation that trivializes the issue to the point that it isn't a meaningful explanation, but at least it isn't going about needlessly attaching extra claims to itself. And yes, I can use my object with its mysterious properties to account for anything. Yes! Exactly!

[_Some Schmo]

"The universe could be uniform, and though it would be rigorously irrational for us to describe it thus, we could have "lucked out" and been right anyway, this explains the present success of science, and why things have appeared for all this time to us to have been operating on uniform principles. Nowhere is God required or necessary."

The ironic part here is that you object to me describing the atheistic universe as coming about by "pure chance" but yet to account for the uniformity of nature you postulate that we have just "lucked out". Do you see the inconsistency there?

I think you misunderstood what he said there. When he mentioned, "we could have 'lucked out'" he was talking about being right, not about the accounting of the perceived uniformity of the universe. There was nothing inconsistent in what he wrote.

And here is one of my main points to you Sethbag, you can object to a "chance" beginning to the universe all you want but, when speaking about the beginning of the universe, you can't help but use language that suggests randomness. Let me show you:

"We have no rational basis to assert that the universe was uncaused. For all we know, the universe's coming about was the direct result of some other physical process, however we haven't got enough information to even begin speculating what that process might have been."

Using this "for all we know" type language, the uncaused position is just as viable.

So what? It doesn't change the fact that what he said is true. How is that using language that suggests randomness?

"We can't say whether it "just happened" to lead to uniformity in nature, or whether there was really no other way it could have come out. . . But what that means also is that you have no basis for claiming that the way things came about in the universe was any more or less probable than any particular other way you imagine it might have turned out. Indeed, you would have no rational basis for attempting to imagine it coming out in any other way."

Following this logic, we have no basis for saying that the universe should come about in any certain way at all, right? Not being able to ascribe any kind of cause, effect, or knowable event like you just, isn't this the definition of chance?

No. It's the definition of ignorance. We simply don't know. Claiming it's random is claiming it's chance, but I don't remember him saying that. I remember you ascribing that position to atheists a lot, but I don't remember any atheists actually saying it.

"For all we know, this uniform universe is the only kind of universe that can even exist, and there was no "just happened to" or "chance" or "cosmic roll of the dice" involved. We just don't know, and we have zero basis for speculating otherwise."

And, just as easily, we have no basis for speculating that it did or didn't or would or wouldn't come about in any particular way at all, right? More chance language.

You have a bad habit of equating chance to ignorance. How is it that not knowing something is the same as "it must have happened randomly?"

Again, just because one doesn't know how something happened doesn't mean they think it happened randomly.

Evolution is a great example or how many Christians misunderstand this concept and chalk the whole thing up to chance. Christians think the entire evolutionary process is the product of pure chance, but it's simply not true. The only thing remotely random about it is the occasional mutation, but once that mutation occurs, it lives or dies based on certain key factors, like the environment and it's usefulness for survival. Is the environment random? Is what's good for survival random? No. They are what they are. Those mutations won't stick around if they disobey (or come in conflict with) these basic laws. There's nothing random at all about natural selection. The factors (laws) that decide natural selection are set in stone.

Is it fair to say that, just because for many years, humans didn't understand the process of evolution and natural selection that the different species all came about by chance? Obviously not. And guess what... no god/creator is needed for evolution to happen.

I think it's fair to say that the universe has evolved in a similar manner, according to a particular set of laws. While there may be certain things about it that are random, on the whole, it makes sense that what we see of it today is not random at all.

[Alf'Omega]

I think the problem for religious people is that for them, everything that seems to demonstrate order must have had some intelligence be the cause of it. It’s an incredibly limited outlook, but I think that’s the problem.

Consider the funnel. If sand is poured from a high place and splays out in a wide area, it’s fair to think that the grains would land in random places… unless, before they land, they're caught by a funnel. Once the sand comes out the funnel spout, it lands in a nice little steep pile right below the funnel spout. It had to, because the funnel, in cooperation with gravity, made that happen.

Now, does this mean the funnel and gravity intelligently designed the pile? Are the funnel and gravity creators? No, they just happen to have certain properties that cause a certain thing to happen when given a certain input.

Are rivers intelligently designed? No. All it takes is water (or condensation), some gravity, and a path of least resistance, and voila, rivers are formed. If rivers were intelligently designed, they would likely be a straight line, not a meandering, inefficient path. That’s because when something is designed, certain outcomes are desired prior to the design, not after the thing was created. Efficiency is generally considered a design goal going in; otherwise, the design isn’t all that intelligent.

[_Some Schmo]

Man, I keep hitting the damn "quote" button rather than "Edit"...

[_The Dude]

You're next objection will be, "Well then God is a cop-out explanation for EVERYTHING!". Yes! Exactly!

God would also be an explanation for a universe far less organized than the one we've got, even the one you described earlier where you don't know if you should put gas in your car or breathe air. God could have made that kind of universe for us, and people would still logically try to use it as evidence. Once you realize that "God" can explain any hypothetical universe, the universe as it is doesn't seem like such a specific indicator that there is a God. At least this is how it seems to me.

Anyhow, when EAllusion asks you to give an explanation for God, you should just tell him it was fate or even dumb luck for us to have a super-duper powerful God who is far greater in complexity and elegance than the universe you mean to explain.

[_CypressChristian]

Schmo

"I think you misunderstood what he said there. When he mentioned, "we could have 'lucked out'" he was talking about being right, not about the accounting of the perceived uniformity of the universe."

Right, we got lucky that nature is uniform.

"So what? It doesn't change the fact that what he said is true. How is that using language that suggests randomness?"

The "uncaused" position being just as viable as the "directly caused by some physical process" would lead to chance because the definition of chance is not being able to attribute a cause to a phenomena. But, let's say I grant you that the universe was the direct cause of some other physical process, what was the cause of THAT physical process?

"No. It's the definition of ignorance. We simply don't know. Claiming it's random is claiming it's chance, but I don't remember him saying that. I remember you ascribing that position to atheists a lot, but I don't remember any atheists actually saying it."

Ok, he was saying that we cannot attribute any cause or non-cause to the universe so we can't say it's chance, but not being able to attribute a cause to a phenomena is the definition of chance! Also, I'm not saying that all atheists must believe that the universe came about by chance, I'm saying that if anyone was to follow out the atheist worldview to it's most logical conclusion, the universe was brought about by chance. Wether an individual atheist will admit it or not is besides the point.

"You have a bad habit of equating chance to ignorance. How is it that not knowing something is the same as "it must have happened randomly?"

Saying we don't know how it happened but we know it didn't happen randomly is inconsistent. But here is the actual point: If the universe didn't happen by chance, then it was caused. What caused the universe then? Saying it was God is just as logical as saying it was any other natural phenomena. But let's say it's not God, lets it's a natural process powerful enough to create universes. What is powerful enough to cause a cause powerful enough to cause the universe? Where did that uber-powerful cause come from? Another uber-uber powerful cause? Basically, if the universe was caused by a natural process, the atheist must then have faith in an infinite regress of ever increasingly powerful natural phenomena. Pretty soon, the atheist is ascribing abilities to those natural phenomena similar to the abilities the Christian ascribes to God. The only reason the atheist isn't calling the phenomena "God" is because it offends their sensibilities as an atheist.

Schmo, I was under the impression that Natural Selection selected random mutations and that Natural Selection had no direction in mind. Is that not random?

"Now, does this mean the funnel and gravity intelligently designed the pile?"

You are attributing the undesigned nature of a pile of sand using an analogy with a designed object, the funnel!

When have you ever heard a Creationist say that rivers themselves were intelligently designed? Talk about a strawman of epic proportions.

[_CypressChristian]

EA

"Saying the rest of existence of uniform is so because God is inexplicably law-like and wanted to create a law-like universe is no better than saying existence is uniform because that is a fundamental property of it (again, it's worse)."

Yes, you've stated as such before have not really given my a reason why. You say it's no "better", which leads me to ask what you mean by "better"? As I explained, it's not circular reasoning, so I'm not committing a logical fallacy by making the statement so I'm confused by what you mean by "better".

"And yes, I can use my object with its mysterious properties to account for anything. Yes! Exactly!"

Ok, but by doing so you are not adhering to your atheistic worldview, because you are believing in a higher "object". By attributing law-likeness and rationality to God I am merely adhering to the Christian worldview, I am just being consistent with my beliefs. Your other problem is to say that this "object" explains uniformity you must admit that the Christian God explains uniformity while at the same time realizing the "It is because it is" is irrational but it's the only thing you can go with. Don't you see what leaps of faith you must take (believing circular reasoning and begging the question is viable) just to ignore God?

[Guest]

Yes, you've stated as such before have not really given my a reason why. You say it's no "better", which leads me to ask what you mean by "better"? As I explained, it's not circular reasoning, so I'm not committing a logical fallacy by making the statement so I'm confused by what you mean by "better".

By better, I mean providing a better account of the problem in question. In both cases, it leaves uniformity to a brute fact of existence. It's just that one has more uneccessary existential claims attached to it.

"And yes, I can use my object with its mysterious properties to account for anything. Yes! Exactly!"

Ok, but by doing so you are not adhering to your atheistic worldview, because you are believing in a higher "object".

Unless that object is a deity, then there's no violation of atheism. I also don't believe in said object. I'm just pointing out that that non-explanation, in addition to having he same function as yours, is more parsimonious. So "law-likeness" can no longer be used as a property that preferences God over no-God. The TAG you are using rests on the premise that Uniformity of Nature is accounted for if and only if your God exists. If you grant that is not the case, then your whole argument collapses. Again, you're just using God of the Gaps reasoning as applied to basic issues in epistemology. Once off the problem of induction, you are eager to apply the same argument to the problem of universals.

If you cannot account for the uniformity of God, which is how you are able to trust that he'll maintain a uniformity of nature, then you are just begging the question if you assert you have accounted for uniformity. But when that is pointed out, you retreat into saying that you are just pointing out such an assumption of your "worldview" is consistent with uniformity (Of course it is. It's a tautology.) But if that's all we are after, then assuming the universe is law-like is just as consistent. But when that's pointed out, you call it a tautology. When it is pointed out that it is no more tautologous than making that assumption of God, you again talk about consistency. You're just on a merrygoround switching back and forth between these points as each one gets attacked.

[_JAK]

My compliments to EAllusion for posts Thu Aug 21, 2008 4:03 pm, Thu Aug 21, 2008 4:16 pm, Fri Aug 22, 2008 5:08 am, Fri Aug 22, 2008 5:15 am, Fri Aug 22, 2008 5:44 am, and numerous others for analysis, information, and thought which stand unassailed by those who oppose the content. Without participating in the discussion directly (absent time to do so), my commendations to EAllusion for detailed and comprehensive discourses here. They stand firmly in the face of responses of disagreement by some who offer no substantive evidence in opposition.

[_Sethbag]

And here is one of my main points to you Sethbag, you can object to a "chance" beginning to the universe all you want but, when speaking about the beginning of the universe, you can't help but use language that suggests randomness. Let me show you:

"We have no rational basis to assert that the universe was uncaused. For all we know, the universe's coming about was the direct result of some other physical process, however we haven't got enough information to even begin speculating what that process might have been."

Using this "for all we know" type language, the uncaused position is just as viable.

But you don't say "for all we know", you just assert that the atheist's position is that the universe was uncaused, random, chance, luck of the dice, etc. There's a difference between saying "there is no rational basis for speculating how the universe got here at all" and saying "the atheist must maintain that the universe is uncaused, random, here only by chance, a cosmic lucky shake of the dice, etc." I have done the former, and you have done the latter. Your approach is not supportable.

"We can't say whether it "just happened" to lead to uniformity in nature, or whether there was really no other way it could have come out. . . But what that means also is that you have no basis for claiming that the way things came about in the universe was any more or less probable than any particular other way you imagine it might have turned out. Indeed, you would have no rational basis for attempting to imagine it coming out in any other way."

Following this logic, we have no basis for saying that the universe should come about in any certain way at all, right? Not being able to ascribe any kind of cause, effect, or knowable event like you just, isn't this the definition of chance?

Not being able to ascribe a cause because we don't know how something came about is not equivelant to saying that the thing came about by chance.

Go back to my analogy of a UFO in the night sky. By definition, you don't know what it is. The possibilities are wide open. Does it make sense to you to say that it got there by chance, just because you are unable to ascribe a particular cause to it? No, but you insist on being able to do the same thing with the origin of the universe. To you, not knowing anything about the origin of the universe justifies you in saying it came about by chance. I think that's nonsense.

"For all we know, this uniform universe is the only kind of universe that can even exist, and there was no "just happened to" or "chance" or "cosmic roll of the dice" involved. We just don't know, and we have zero basis for speculating otherwise."

And, just as easily, we have no basis for speculating that it did or didn't or would or wouldn't come about in any particular way at all, right? More chance language.

No. Saying "we don't know" and "we have no reason to preference any explanation over any other" does not imply that the event itself came down to chance.

Also, Sethbag, you switch what we are talking about and contradict yourself:

"For all you know there really is a God, but he's a capricious, evil God, and he's only letting us think we live in a uniform world to f*ck with our heads, and tomorrow the water will start burning our organs."

1. You make this argument because you can't get around the fact that a law-like, rational God just plain allows us to account for the uniformity of nature. Instead of attempting to give an atheistic account besides "It is because it is" you attack my assumption about the nature of God.

The problem is you have no rational reason for believing any particular thing about the nature of God, even assuming for the sake of argument that we at least established that a God existed (which we haven't). You assume a "law-like" God with the very qualities that your Christian worldview presupposes (how convenient), when myriad other possible Gods could still account for things like the apparent uniformity of nature. My evil God who is just letting us think that nature is uniform to mess with our heads is a case in point. He explains the apparent uniformity of nature just as well as your Christian God. But to back up for a second, I don't think it's rational to infer a God at all - of whatever nature, much less the Christian one.

That's not what we're talking about. Bottom line: Does a rational God allow the Christian to account for the uniformity of nature? You can't get around the fact that the answer is "yes". Wether or not you believe this God exists or that a certain attribute of God is or is not likely is besides the point, and is has nothing to do with the Christians ability to account for that uniformity.

The whole point is that you are arguing for a Christian God's existence by posing a philosophical problem, and then asserting that only your Christian God avoids or solves the problem. This is rubbish, because your Christian God is only one of myriad possible explanations which likewise solve the problem. Your argument doesn't win the "victory" of logic that you think it does.

2. You just stated that we can't know that any attribute of the beginning of the universe is more likely than any other. But here you suggest that a capricious, evil God, is just as, or more likely, than a benevolent, rational God. Do you see the inconsistency there? We can't make probability distictions with the universe but you can do so with God?

Wrong. I said "for all we know", not "these things are equally probable". "For all we know" makes no judgment of relative probability.

If you bought a lottery scratch ticket and took it to my house, and we grabbed a coin to scratch off the waxy rectangle, and looked at it and rubbed our hands with glee and anticipation, it would be correct to say "for all we know that could be the winning ticket right there in our hands". That would not, however, be assigning a probability to that ticket's actually being the winning ticket.

You are arguing against the Christian worldview, in the Christian worldview, God is benevolent, rational and law-like. Creating an evil God strawman and arguing it is not arguing the issue at hand.

My hypothesized Evil God "explains" the apparent uniformity of nature in this universe as well as your Christian God. You went for the "logical" win with your Christian God, and got blind-sided. There's no reason we should assume that your Christian God is any more likely than my Evil God, and there's no reason we should assume that even if there were really a God, it even would be one of our two suggested ones at all. It could really be the 8-legged Octupus God named Splurge, who is believed in by the "people" on Beta Zed. We could literally hypothesize an infinite variety of Gods who could all have the property of "explaining" uniformity in nature, without being your Christian God.

And I could hypothesize a universe with no God at all that also explains it. I shall do it right now:

I hypothesize that this universe is the only kind of universe that can possibly exist. I can't explain why that is so, but declare this feature to be inexplicable, and not requiring any sort of explanation. It just is.

That explains why this universe's nature is uniform - it can't possible not be, that's why.

Ok, I've solved the problem of uniformity just as effectively as you have by asserting the existence of the Christian God. (that is to say, not very effectively at all, because I still am asserting something that can not be explained, just like you are)

Another main point of mine towards you and EAllusion is this: In order to defend your assumption that nature is uniform without God, you attempt to pass off irrationalities as possible/viable.

EAllusion is far more educated in the philosophical arguments ultimately in play here, and far more eloquent than I in making his points. I am not worthy, and would respectfully suggest that his arguments must be confronted separately from mine, and on their own merits.

"You see, I do have to get up in the morning, and I do have to make some assumptions about the world. The rationality of doing this is supported by past experience. The sun really has risen every morning since I've been alive, or at least it appeared to my brain-in-the-jar to do so. I accept the world as it appears to us to be as a more useful, and more pragmatic choice than assuming the existence of an all-powerful magic old man living outside the universe somewhere who created it all just so we could sing his praises."

Here, Sethbag postulates circular reasoning as viable. You are basically saying, "I know the sun will rise tomorrow, because, in past tomorrows, the sun has always risen." This is circular reasoning and begging the question.

Ok. I'm OK with that in the "real world", ie: the world we actually live in, not the surreal space of philosophical argumentation. However, if I go down this way, you do too. You do this inasmuch as you assert a God with infinite magical powers, and then disclaim any requirement or necessity of explaining this God's existence.

"Evolutionary biology and genetics don't contemplate abiogenesis. They contemplate what happened after abiogenesis occurred. However it occurred, life did in fact come about, and evolution has done a fine job explaining what happened ever since then."

First Sethbag, you contradict yourself here because in a previous post you stated that scientists have done well on their own describing how we came about without God. Yet here you say that they don't worry about abiogenesis and then make an absolute statement of faith about it happening.

I don't say that scientists don't worry about abiogenesis. They certainly do. What I said was that evolutionary theory is not the theory of abiogenesis - it is the theory of how life developed after abiogenesis had occurred.

There certainly are scientists who are investigating abiogenesis, and when or if they ever are able to explain the mechanism by which this occurred, that will be an immeasurable contribution to science.

Second, you are basically saying, "I don't know how it came about, and I'm going to ignore the question, but I do know what happened directly after the beginning". This is rational or viable?

I didn't say I'm going to ignore the question. I would love to discover the mechanism by which life on Earth actually came about. That way be Nobel Prizes, and immeasurable contributions to our understanding of the universe and our place in it. That being said, it is not necessary to discover the mechanism behind the origin of the very first life on Earth, to be able to understand the mechanisms by which that life differentiated into the variety of lifeforms we see on Earth today. Evolution does a very credible job in explaining the diversity of life, even though it must (for now) simply assume a "first life" without being able to explain it.

"Again, we might wish to know everything about how things happened, but we haven't figured that out yet. The universe doesn't "owe" us an explanation. We might know how life came about someday, and we might not. My fajitas still tasted delicious."

Naturalism-of-the-gaps passed off as rational/viable.

How is this "of the gaps"? An "of the gaps" argument goes something like this:

"You can't explain X. Therefore God must have done it."

I'm saying "We can't explain X yet, but we're working on it. Hopefully someday we'll be able to explain X. In the meantime, my fajitas still tasted great." How is that an "of the gaps" inferential argument?

I won't quote the part you addressed to EAllusion. He will no doubt blow you out of the water with his own reply to it.