This post is to move a discussion from Sandbox(4) at Entropy’s request.
Over on the Sandbox(4) thread, fifthmonarchyman made two statements that I disagree with:
“I’ve argued repeatedly that humans are hardwired to believe in God.”
“Everyone knows that God exists….”
As my handle indicates, I prefer to lurk. The novelty of being told that I don’t exist overcame my good sense, so I joined the conversation.
For the record, I am what is called a weak atheist or negative atheist. The Wikipedia page describes my position reasonably well:
“Negative atheism, also called weak atheism and soft atheism, is any type of atheism where a person does not believe in the existence of any deities but does not explicitly assert that there are none. Positive atheism, also called strong atheism and hard atheism, is the form of atheism that additionally asserts that no deities exist.”
I do exist, so fifthmonarchyman’s claims are disproved. For some reason he doesn’t agree, hence this thread.
Added In Edit by Alan Fox 16.48 CET 11th January, 2018
This thread is designated as an extension of Noyau. This means only basic rules apply. The “good faith” rule, the “accusations of dishonesty” rule do not apply in this thread.
Quite the contrary. I am dismissing what you didn’t understand.
Neil,
Then you’re welcome to rebut my comment. Again, it’s called “discussion”, and it’s what TSZ is for.
And now show how you think EAAN presupposes that.
It is impossible to have any thoughtful discussion with people who just say others to be wrong and themselves to be right without any explanation. Very bad manners, philosophically speaking.
Erik, to Neil:
Here’s an earlier exchange in which Neil tries to defend a related notion of implicit theism:
Neil:
keiths:
Also:
Neil:
keiths:
Another relevant comment from that same thread:
I sure have. If what you did is what you do with my comments, I’m not surprised that you didn’t get it.
You couldn’t know, since you read shallowly.
I just checked, and the word “verisimilitudinous” appears only once, I doubt that the words “once” and “repeatedly” are synonyms:
The word refers to something “appearing to be true.” It doesn’t refer to shades of grey at all.
Plantinga never considers the possibility for shades of grey. All his “examples” and “situations,” involve true/false dichotomies, and astoundingly absurd situations with beings who have complex language, or at least complex concepts, and yet their beliefs appear randomly. The guy is, quite simply, a very stupid sophist.
You use the true/false dichotomy yourself right here asking about beliefs being true. You don’t consider even changing the language to something about, say, accuracy, or else to change the propositions to something that may or may not be true in absolutist terms, but that could still be a step in the right direction.
ETA: For example, you never write something on the lines of “the cat thinks that there might be a mouse by the door,” instead of “the cat thinks that it is true that there’s a mouse by the door.”
I understand that it’s absurd, and it’s already thoroughly refuted (not just by me). You might be impressed by the imbecile’s credentials. I, on the other hand, think he should return his Ph.D. title. The guy makes astounding kinder-garten-level philosophical mistakes, leaving aside his mistakes in biology.
ETA: decided to stay out of Neil’s and Erik’s conversation.
keiths:
Entropy:
It appears four times in Warrant and Proper Function, the book in which Platinga presents the EAAN for the first time. Do your homework, dude.
Again, you haven’t done your homework. From the Wikipedia article on verisimilitude:
Entropy,
It’s fine to add an ETA saying “Never mind”, but very bad form to erase a comment once you’ve made it.
keiths:
Entropy:
Did you fail to notice the title of my old thread (the one that Alan pointed out to you), or its opening statement?
I’m obviously not in awe of Plantinga’s credentials.
The difference between you and me is that I don’t want a cheap “victory” over Plantinga based on a misunderstanding of his EAAN. As I said earlier:
Regardless what the cat thinks, isn’t it so that the mouse either is there or not and the cat either has or has not detected it? Why should we suppose that the cat thinks anything at all and, even if it does, the thoughts involve concepts like “might”? More likely the cat thinks in terms of “food!” and “other-than-food”. What sort of shades of grey would cats require?
Neil has no conversation.
He could but that would be really silly. God is not about converting whole countries he is about gathering people to himself and establishing a new nation that is not defined by physical borders or ethnicities.
God’s power is manifest in weakness.
It’s those who reject God who crave political power. God is about changing hearts that is a much more difficult thing to accomplish. If fact it is impossible for anyone but God
quote:
Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”
(Luk 17:20-21)
end quote:
The Kingdom of God is not a typical political entity like a country but it does outlast and eventually defeat those countries that set themselves up against God’s self revelation.
quote:
And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever,
(Dan 2:44)
end quote:
peace
No, God has revealed himself to you providing Information is certainly not rape. keeping folks in ignorance is what the enemies of God try to do.
God did not force his way into your belief system with out you knowing it.
He made sure you know full well that he exists.
You can choose to accept that revelation or reject it. But you can’t choose to unknow what you know.
peace
fifth:
That explains why you think your failures bring him glory.
1) Who said that people in Sweden accept that God exists?
2) What does religion have to do with knowing that God exists?
3) Religion is a big part of what is wrong with the world.
Religion is all about reaching up toward what ever your personal concept of God is. The Kingdom of God on the other is about God reaching down toward his people in grace.
peace
Earlier Neil argued that logic arose simply because making binary distinctions are beneficial from an evolutionary standpoint.
It seems that Enthropy would disagree.
peace
Yes, it’s called reality and how it works. People disagree, and work towards agreement. If they can’t do so then each strikes out on their own and ultimately proves their way is correct or not. Perhaps the other person has stopped caring by then. Or perhaps they are willing to argue for ever. The point is that most people have within them the ability to note when they have been demonstrated to be wrong or have an incomplete understanding.
It’s how normal people are. Nobody is sitting around waiting for “revelation”.
Given those enemies of god know that god exists, who would be so foolish as to be the enemy of god, the being that can arbitrarily change the universe to suit it’s wishes.
It’s Noah and the flood all over again. Apparently god destroyed the world for reason X, and within just a few generations the entire world forgot about X and just started doing it again. Speaking all those different languages and whatnot.
In reality every human alive would beat their children into submission to ensure the very real and very powerful god was not angered again as it would be very clear to them that god is in fact a real thing and happy to destroy them if they fail.
And that did not happen. We just “forgot” about the flood and it’s lesson.
So who are these enemies of god, these ants that fight the foot of a giant they believe in and have no fear of but who cannot even perceive anything beyond the toe and yet fear that mightly?
Apparently he did.
You’ve been very specific about which particular god exists. And that specificity is the religion.
When’s that going to start then? Will all those children beaten to death by priests in Ireland be appeased by that grace? Are all those priests also up there in heaven, having asked for forgiveness?
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
Yes, let us become gods ourselves that the unimaginative among us will tremble in fear!
Sure it is. After all Jesus was the product of a rape. Your god has a track record as a rapist. Did the mother of god ask to be impregnated with god? That’s kinda the definition right there.
Or we could look at the revealed knowledge of god given to us in the bible, every word of which is true.
Murder, rape, and pillage at Jabesh-gilead. Four hundred young virgins who had never slept with a man, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan. Can you guess what happened next? Then they went back for more!
What about the Midianites. Only the young girls who were virgins lived after the battle, god said “you may keep them for yourselves”. Presumably so they could be freed, right? Or the laws of rape, just fifty pieces of silver to get out of that one, plus you get to force her to marry you too! Be sure to cry out for help however, otherwise it’s a stoning to death for you!
And on and on and on and on and on. Your god is a rapist. Minds, babies, women, children. It’s all the same to that bearded monstrosity.
OMagain:
Rumraket’s got a head start on the rest of us.
ETA: Edited because I thought this was keiths.
Depends on what we’re talking about. If, for example, there was a mouse-like-noise by the door, then the cat could have a hint, rather than certainty.
How would I know. It was keiths example, not mine. I’m just saying that keiths’s talking in the terms that Plantinga implanted. True/fase dichotomies.
Sure. It’s a a problem to anthropomorphize the cat. But I wasn’t accepting the anthropomorphism, I was exemplifying keiths’ buying into Plantinga’s true/false dichotomy.
Why not “maybe food” if it’s hungry, or “maybe toy” when it’s not hungry? The shades of grey allow for the incertitude that allows for refinement of representations. A simpler representation will cover more than just “food.” When the cat comes and bytes something that’s not food, it will learn that the simpler representation is not enough. Will pay attention to more details. The first representation will then become a clue, a maybe, then checking a tad further, for some other detail, the cat might decide to go for it. Etc.
Either way, the point is: cognitive faculties are not binary. Plantinga thinks they are.
P.S. My apologies for mistaking you for keiths.
LOL
The more that Neil moves toward Entropy here the less his claim that logic is a human convention works.
The more that Entropy moves toward Neil here the less cogent his objection to Plantinga becomes.
In this case it’s heads I win tails you loose.
If no agreement can be reached that is even better for the Christian position.
If non-Christians can’t even convince their own compatriots about the centerpiece of their arguments how can they ever expect to convince those on the other side of the fence.
peace
fifth:
As if there were a Christian consensus regarding the presuppositionalist nonsense you peddle.
You have a knack for deploying arguments that boomerang on you, fifth.
I would agree that to be God’s enemy is the height of foolishness. That is the point of a good chunck of the Bible.
quote:
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
(Rom 1:21-22)
end quote:
No, that specificity is what separates Chrisianity from the manny religions of the world
quote:
for the customs of the peoples are vanity.
(Jer 10:3A)
end quote;
peace
You’ve failed to note the fact that people don’t make enemies with things that can crush them on a whim, especially after demonstrating that time and time again.
I’ve asked you to name some enemies of god, you seem keen to claim they exist but reluctant to name them or explain why indeed they are enemies of something they cannot fight, see or attack but which can destroy them on a whim.
What, a fondness for rape? Yeah, I’m starting to see that. Not many other modern religions have rape as their founding act. Zeus raped his sister but not many people around today worshipping him. This must be why for it’s entire history the Christian church has protected the rapists within it’s ranks.
There’s even a fucking database: http://bishop-accountability.org/priestdb/PriestDBbylastName-A.html
keiths,
My apologies for mistaking you for Erik.
Sure they do. Have you ever read the Bible?
All you have to do is convince yourself that God is not who you know he is and then you can justify all kinds of foolishness
Left to our own devises we are all enemies of God. Every single one of us.
quote:
Rom 3:10-18
(10) as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one;
(11) no one understands; no one seeks for God.
(12) All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
(13) “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.”
(14) “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
(15) “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
(16) in their paths are ruin and misery,
(17) and the way of peace they have not known.”
(18) “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
end quote:
Only God’s grace can change us from enemies to friends of God
quote:
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
(Tit 3:3-5)
end quote:
um, because they are foolish.
quote:
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Pro 1:7)
end quote:
The hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church certainly is not the Christian Church.
In fact the Roman hierarachy has spent a good portion of it’s history persecuting folks who believe like me.
peace
I don’t know if Neil argued such a thing, but that would be historically incorrect. Some Greeks thought of extracting rules for argumentations involving true/false dichotomies. Classic logic arose because those Greeks found such distinctions useful.
it must have been crazy to live in the time before there was logic.
😉
peace
Entropy:
fifth:
Entropy even italicized the “Classic” in “Classic Logic”.
You’re just pitiful, fifth.
Entropy, to Erik:
No, he doesn’t, and I just explained that to you.
And even if he did, you’d still be foolish to fixate on it. The proper goal here isn’t to say that Plantinga is an imbecile; it’s to defend naturalism and evolutionary theory. The way to do that is to show that they withstand the best possible version of Plantinga’s argument, whether it comes from him or someone else, including us (acting as our own devil’s advocates).
In your zeal to say “He’s wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong!”, you’re distorting and mischaracterizing his argument. Rein in your emotions and address his actual argument, or a better version of his actual argument, if you can come up with one.
That’s how to be effective in this debate.
It’s largely an empirical question whether animals have concepts, and there’s a lively debate in the literature on the philosophy of animal minds. (Not that it can be settled by science alone, but it can’t be settled without science, either.)
One important piece of the puzzle is what Gareth Evans called “the Generality Constraint”: a central function of concepts is to allow for generalizations. To have the concept “a is a F” — i.e. to classify the particular a under the general F — involves being able to entertain the thoughts “b is a F” and also “a is a G”.
You haven’t gotten the ability to subsume particulars under generals unless you can understand that there can be more than one particular under that general and also that the particular can be subsumed by more than one general (for example, because particular objects can instantiate more than one property).
In other words, concepts aren’t just labels we stick onto sensed particulars. They are tools, but tools of an important kind: tools used to make thoughts. A cat hasn’t got a concept of mouse unless it can use that concept to recognize different particular mice as falling under a more general term. And even if the cat’s concept of mouse is not much like the human concept (i.e. whatever plays the functional role in a language that the word “mouse” plays in English), it still can’t count as a concept at all unless it plays a structuring role in ordering mental representations into relations of generals and particulars.
So if the cat is only responding to each particular-in-a-situation at a time, and doesn’t recognize the particulars as being subsumed under generals, then I don’t see how its mental representations can count as concepts.
I don’t think that an animal can make claims if it can’t engage in the kind of social interaction that involves comparing its own perspective on the world with the perspectives of other animals. And if beliefs are endorsements of claims, then animals that can’t triangulate don’t have beliefs. Non-triangulating animals could have concepts of a very simple kind, and both Peter Carruthers and Liz Camp have argued that animals can satisfy the Generality Constraint. I think that’s right but I’m still trying to work through the debate.
That quote doesn’t present a definition compatible with “shades of gray” at all. Just how much something appears to be true. Still pointing to a dichotomy way of thinking.
I did my homework. I read one of Plantinga’s crap, and it contained that word only once. If that book contained it four times, doesn’t matter, four times is not a synonym with “repeatedly” either, and the point is that the word doesn’t save Plantinga from his absurd mistakes. Not only that, you still follow in his example asking about “producing true beliefs.” The dichotomy thinking is right there and then.
By the way, the word doesn’t appear here at all. That should tell you how important it was for Plantinga to frame the shit on true/false terms.
What about you stopped looking for excuses? Poor thinking and poor philosophy will remain so regardless of how much you love Plantinga’s sophisms.
KN,
As I keep stressing, I am not claiming that the cat has a concept of “mouse”, or “door”, or “behind”. I’m simply saying that the cat has a representation of its surroundings, in which what we would call “the mouse” is what we would call “behind” what we would call “the door”.
That’s debatable, but in any case it’s irrelevant, because the ability to make claims is not a prerequisite for having beliefs.
Why think that beliefs are endorsements of claims? When I see the forked flash across the valley and believe that it’s lightning, I’m not endorsing anyone’s claim.
Why keep trying to turn beliefs into all these other things? Why not just let beliefs be beliefs?
There’s a distinction between the ability to reason — to engage in argument and debate — and the codification of reasoning in systems of logic. Reasoning is a human universal because it’s necessary for cooperation.
In ancient Greece, it was (I believe) the much-maligned Sophists (such as Gorgias and Protagoras) who started writing down what they took to be the rules of correct reasoning. They found it useful to do that because of the political and economic changes in 4th century Athens. Other civilizations have developed logics for reasons of their own (for more, see here).
Entropy,
You haven’t refuted Plantinga, and given your fixation on his supposedly absolutist, dichotomous thinking, it’s unlikely that you ever will.
Feel free to declare victory over the “sophist”. You’re not fooling me, and I doubt that you’re fooling anyone else, either.
In KN’s world reasoning is universal but the law of contradiction is not.
Which of course means that in KN’s world reasoning is not universal but the law of non-contradiction is.
😉
peace
KN, to Entropy:
You should be directing that comment to fifth, not Entropy.
fifth is the one who wrote:
I just love watching folks on that side of the fence arguing about stuff as basic as reasoning and logic itself as if they can change the way things actually are if they can just explain it better than the other guy.
peace
Sorry, but your saying so doesn’t make it so. Plantinga is completely refuted. Not just by me. I could not care less what you think given that you have no idea of my position. You didn’t read what I wrote.
Of course I’m not fooling anybody. I’m not trying to. ANybody who cares can read what I explained without the enormous emotional handicap that kept you from reading for comprehension, just because I said that you fell into Plantinga’s trap. A bruised ego is not the best tool for going against some arguments. You should know this already.
Are you an adolescent? If so, I apologize for insulting you. Your mind might mature later in time. You just have to learn to accept your mistakes and to read for comprehension even when you feel insulted.
Heh.
fifth:
I love watching fifth trying to condescend to people who are actually discussing the issues, rather than robotically repeating a set of presuppositionalist talking points.
That’s part of my point. One caveat, the ability to reason is not just about engaging in argument and debate, and classic logic is the codification of but one kind of reasoning.
Thanks. My point is thus corrected: classic logic was developed by those civilizations that found binary thinking to be useful.
[Edited a bit]
Talk about a self-refuting “worldview.” Gerbil is talking about himself, only he just “thinks” that he’s explaining things “better than the other guy,” but he’s just ridiculing himself.
Agreed on both points. Reasoning is not just about argument and debate. Reasoning has a lot of important social roles.
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘classic logic’. Logicians and philosophers use the term classical logic to refer to formal systems with specific properties. Is that what you had in mind?
In any event, I quite agree that classical logic captures a dimension of reasoning but not all of it.
Well, the Aristotelians and Stoics did, sure. Though Aristotle recognized that some propositions don’t have a truth-value. Propositions about the future were neither true nor false but indeterminate. And Najarjuna developed a logic with four truth values.
Where this connects with the earlier discussion about Plantinga and the EAAN is this: I don’t think that Plantinga has really thought enough about the deep connection between beliefs and claims, since it’s claims or assertions that are true or false.
I think that if beliefs are endorsed claims, then it’s going to become quite clear that only animals with complex sociocultural practices can make claims, and ergo have beliefs.
Which means that we naturalists shouldn’t allow Plantinga to set the terms of the debate by saying that a cognitive capacity is reliable if it tends to produce true beliefs. We need a much more primitive criterion for what makes a cognitive capacity reliable, hundreds of millions of years before complex sociocultural practices like claiming appear on the scene.
This is worth a repost, since the video is such an excellent metaphor for fifth’s fumblings:
I didn’t. Someone misinterpreted a comment that I made.
I’m assuming that the actual invention of logic occured somewhere in pre-history. You might be right about when it was formalized.
KN,
But why take beliefs to be endorsed claims? It doesn’t make sense.
Are you actually denying that the cat believes that the mouse is on the other side of the door, or that I believe that there’s lightning across the valley, merely because neither of us is endorsing a claim?
Well, it does make sense if the underlying picture of beliefs is tailored to suit the needs of epistemologists, since they tend to think of knowledge as justified true belief. As I’ve been saying all along, I’m open to different ways of thinking about what beliefs are. I just haven’t seen any yet.
In the case of the cat, yes.
In your case, I think that your belief that there’s lightning across the valley is something like a dispositional feature: what you would be prepared to claim or assert in the appropriate context. Of course I think that people can believe things without silently or overtly repeating the claim to themselves or to others. But I still think that there’s a deep connection between beliefs and claims.
I’m actually quite troubled at the idea that non-human animals don’t have beliefs or desires. That seems odd and maybe almost crazy. I’m going to have to really work on this issue and see if I still want to fall on this grenade tomorrow.