ScienceWhopper:Natural History According to Jeffrey Holland

[_Chap]

Your complaint begs the question regarding what is the evidence and rationale for the existence of a diety. That is a rather lengthy discussion for both sides, but when you by fiat simply state God as even non-hypothetical in able to properly judge a possible gap argument I must state I find that little more than verbal and a simple statement of your faith and an uneven willingness to accept gaps to simply be filled in the way you propose.

What does this paragraph mean? (And it's deity, from Latin deus, by the way.)

Mikwut may not want to discuss arguments of the kind 'Life, therefore a deity', but I do, since they are commonly put forward by theists. I don't see that he has done anything to cast any doubt on my demonstration that such an argument is radically different in kind from an argument of the form 'dinosaur extinction, therefore a possible preceding asteroid impact'.

[_mikwut]

Chap,

I was saying that defiantly stating there is no god, so gap arguments are bad, is the same as saying there is a God without any evidence whatsoever and offering a gap argument to prove it. That seemed to me what your criticism entailed. Judging the particular gap argument regardless of the kind is necessary. Shouldn't be that controversial really.

Mikwut may not want to discuss arguments of the kind 'Life, therefore a deity', but I do, since they are commonly put forward by theists.

No, I don't want discuss "life, therefore a deity" with you, I don't even understand the premise it is a bad argument and a caricature. Why is that interesting to you? I don't want to argue moon cheese either. Take care Chap.

regards, mikwut

[Guest]

Chap,

I was saying that defiantly stating there is no god, so gap arguments are bad, is the same as saying there is a God without any evidence whatsoever and offering a gap argument to prove it. That seemed to me what your criticism entailed. Judging the particular gap argument regardless of the kind is necessary. Shouldn't be that controversial really.

But I said:

In the case of 'Life, therefore a deity' we are in a situation where we have absolutely no surety that anything fulfilling the conditions for it to be called a deity has ever existed, and we are not even sure what those conditions are, i.e. we don't just not know whether there are or have ever been any deities in existence, we also have no clear idea what a deity is, or what one might do.

If Mikwut thinks that stating what I said is equivalent to "defiantly stating there is no god", then he seems to me to not be very good at reading carefully qualified statements.

[Edited to remove superfluous 'that']

[_Some Schmo]

Chap,

I was saying that defiantly stating there is no god, so gap arguments are bad, is the same as saying there is a God without any evidence whatsoever and offering a gap argument to prove it. That seemed to me what your criticism entailed. Judging the particular gap argument regardless of the kind is necessary. Shouldn't be that controversial really.

But I said:

In the case of 'Life, therefore a deity' we are in a situation where we have absolutely no surety that anything fulfilling the conditions for it to be called a deity has ever existed, and we are not even sure what those conditions are, i.e. we don't just not know whether there are or have ever been any deities in existence, we also have no clear idea what a deity is, or what one might do.

If Mikwut thinks that stating that what I said is equivalent to "defiantly stating there is no god", then he seems to me to not be very good at reading carefully qualified statements.

It's truly an odd phenomenon how "we have no direct evidence for god" gets translated into "I know there is no god" by theists. It must be the same mechanism that translates warm tingly feelings (or even seemingly transcendent experiences, if we want to pretend sophistication) into evidence of god.

[_Buffalo]

It's truly an odd phenomenon how "we have no direct evidence for god" gets translated into "I know there is no god" by theists. It must be the same mechanism that translates warm tingly feelings (or even seemingly transcendent experiences, if we want to pretend sophistication) into evidence of god.

I've seen this many times. You can also say "I don't believe in God" and it gets translated into "I know for a fact that there couldn't be any sort of god at all."

[_mikwut]

Chap,

I was qualified in my first response that you were seemingly not allowing for the hypothesis. The fact that you stated we aren't sure, or have no clear idea isn't relevant for my response. It is that you are dismissing the ability to hypothesize and judge according to the available evidence we do have for each particular gap argument regardless of the kind. When the asteroid was first hypothesized we didn't have the empirical findings we do today. That's why it was originally a gap argument. Those empirical findings today show us it was a good gap argument. It would have therefore been improper to say,

"extinction, therefore asteroid we don't have surety that anything fulfilling the distinctions of a mass extinction is empirically possible or has ever happened. We aren't even sure what those conditions are and what that would do."

even though that would be accurate. Just like your "qualified" statement about a deity is accurate. It doesn't matter. We don't have to have surety, verification, certainty or exact conditions etc.. to make a proper gap argument. This isn't that complicated or controversial. Your conclusion is where your being unqualified, not in the statements of "we don't have surety".

If Mikwut thinks that stating that what I said is equivalent to "defiantly stating there is no god", then he seems to me to not be very good at reading carefully qualified statements.

Likewise. It seems to me your in principle qualifying your statements but then proceeding as if they weren't. Because your qualifications don't make sense in refuting my very simple point, only dogmatic opinions do. Not allowing a theistic gap argument to be judged in the same manner as any other doesn't fit in your qualified statement as I just demonstrated above.

mikwut

[_Chap]

I'm quite happy for others to decide whether mikwut's reply is coherent or relevant enough to count as a good answer to the points I made.

[_mikwut]

Chap,

So am I without hesitation.

Your complaint is without merit. Gap arguments are used by science, history and other natural fields, they can be used by theists as well. Merely labeling them gap arguments doesn't disqualify them in total or in principle. They must each be judged on their own merits. Materialism of the gaps, god of the gaps, murderer of the gaps all have the same burden. That is the point I made. It still stands unrefuted by your rhetoric.

The fact we don't have certainty about a given hypothesis makes my point rather than offering a criticism of it. That is the very reason we would make a gap argument.

mikwut

[_Chap]

I'm quite happy for others to decide whether mikwut's reply is coherent or relevant enough to count as a good answer to the points I made.