Nearly ten years ago, on the 15th September, 2001, I read this piece in the Guardian, by Richard Dawkins.
I was a theist then, a catholic, in fact, by conversion, in my early twenties, having been baptized in the Episcopal Church of Scotland, sung at matins every Sunday until from age 8 to 11, sent to a Quaker boarding school, where I was devout, if rebellious, and became a Friend, later being confirmed at a High Church Anglican church in Devon, and finally, having married a catholic, feeling I had “come home” to the catholic church.
Always liberal, though – when I was being prepared for reception into the catholic church by the university chaplain, a Benedictine called Fr Fabian Cowper, he asked me if I had any concerns. I said, yes: contraception and papal infallibility. He replied: well, contraception is a good example of papal fallibility. So I thought I’d be OK. It was still not that long after Vatican II, liberation theology was in the air, and the Dominicans in Oxford were regular attenders at the Greenham Common protests, and there was a sense that the church might be a slow vast tanker but the People of God would turn it round. I hung on in there, even when my mother, who later converted herself, was temporarily excommunicated for publishing a book that argued that the church’s moral teaching on medical ethics was mostly wrong (a Jesuit professor of moral theology preached the eulogy at her requiem mass, and paid tribute to her for “having the courage to say what we dare not”, and for having had more faith in her church than her church had had in her. But looking back, that piece in the Guardian was the beginning of the end.
I remember thinking, and saying to my fairly recently bereaved father: “he makes a devasting point – it will be interesting to see how the churches rise to the challenge”.
But they didn’t. There were a couple of peeved responses, IIRC, but no-one took up the challenge. No-one had anything to say to rebut the charge that religion was not just not the defender of morality, but its actual enemy.
I think there is a rebuttal. But it’s a sad reflection on religion IMO that the response has been so pathetic.
Ideology should have died that day. I don’t think religion is the only evil ideology, and it seems to be a human tragedy that the worst deeds are done in the name of some perceived greater good rather than out of simple brutal appetite. One of the most evil things in the world seems to me to be the conviction that your own views are right. Hence the strapline to this blog.
You owe me three citations:
(1) Where philosophy defines what evidence is;
(2) Where philosophy defines how to gather it;
(3) Where philosophy defines how to interpret it.
As best I can tell, philosophers are still arguing over what evidence is. I have not found any useful philosophy of measurement (how to gather evidence). And philosophy has made interpreting evidence into an unexplained mystery (intentionality).
Could you give me an example of the use of philosophy in this way?
Can you give me an example of the establishment and/or use of evidence towards conclucsion that is not rooted in, ordered by and interpreted through philosophy?
It depends on which particular branch of philosophy you are talking about. Any science book, or book on logic, can tell you how science or logic defines, gathers and interprets evidence. They often define multiple kinds of evidence, and describe what weight of importance each should be assigned.
Actually, IMO theism is the only worldview (besides a pure “I don’t know” agnosticism based on ignorance of the available evidence and arguments for god) that is rationally supportable.
I don’t know why you keep bringing up ID; I’m arguing rational theism based on necessary premises. As I’ve already explained, one of the necessary premises is god as uncaused cause source of existence; this means that all other existent things were caused by god to exist, which would mean that no other entity would qualify as “god” under the current premises.
I was using “philosophy” in the sense of “that which professional philosophers do.” It seems that you are using it in the sense of something that all humans do. So we were talking past one another.
Unless you are going to claim that “professional philosophers” do not argue about the philosophy of logic or science, or do not argue epistemology or ontology, then whether or not one is a “professional philosopher” has nothing to do with it. All evidence, in every field of inquiry, is established and interpreted according to some ontologically and epistemologically supported process, most of which has been argued for centuries.
Because one takes their particular process for granted, or is unaware of the philosophical warrant for that process hammered out by those that preceded them (Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, etc.), doesn’t mean that their evidential methodology can be detached from the a priori assumptions and groundings that authorize and support it.
Just identifying something to be used as evidence requires the philosophy of the principle of identity, of non-contradiction, and the excluded middle, as well as epistemological and ontological assumptions about the nature of being and of how we know what we know. Every time you assume something you see exists outside of your mind, you have made a philosophical assumption. Every time you believe that an empirical measurement can be classified as “knowledge”; you have performed a philosophical act.
This reminds me of a thread at ARN way back in 2005 about Demski’s EF
Sal Cordova wrote:
We’re all philosophers even though we don’t know it. We all use ID methods, though we don’t know it.
A reply by Don Provan to Sal’s comment makes the point clearly:
Similarly, one can ask, if we don’t know we are doing philiosophy, what does calling it philosophy add to the mix. What have
The Romansphilosophers ever done for us?Link to page at ARN, sorry there are no permalinks to individual comments, so just scroll down.
William J Murray,
Since there’s absolutely no “available evidence” for any god, why don’t you just say “I don’t know” then? An argument for a god is worthless since there’s no evidence to back it up. Ignorance comes into play when people think that their opinion trumps reality.
It doesn’t matter what you call an apple; it’s still an apple. Because you claim “I”m not eating anything” when you eat an apple, doesn’t mean you aren’t eating an apple.
It doesn’t matter if you call it philosophy or not, or if you deny you are applying it. There’s no way around the fact that how we see and interpret things is the product of our epistemological and ontological philosophy, even if it is not an articulated, ordered model we can explain even to ourselves.
There’s plenty of evidence that a god of some sort exists. As far as I’m aware, there is no evidence whatsoever indicating that no god of any sort exists.
If I accept the premise that god exists without having been caused, then I cannot simply assert that nothing else can exist without having been caused.
Please show me the logic that allows “uncaused A” but disallows “uncaused B”.
I’m not being rhetorical here now, I really would like to see the logic that prevents B if both had the possibility to exist without being caused.
To help, let’s assume either A or B is the god you are referring to.
1) Which one is prevented from existing?
2) What mechanism could prevent the existence of something that does not require a cause at all?
One of the premises is that god is the source of existence. It’s not a conclusion of other premises.
The problem for your world-view is exactly that, that your premise cannot be accepted as being true.
Since you have not …concluded… that your “one-god premise” is “true, then the alternate premise should be explored as logically as your “true” premise.
By not requiring god as a reason for our existence, your “absolute good” is no longer a given, and that would be a valid result of a “multi-god” and/or “non-sentient entity” universe.
I am really interested in how alternate gods are prevented if no god, including yours, requires a “cause” to actually exist.
I am accepting your claim, that your god, is uncaused.
How does that prevent all of mine?
Of course it can be accepted as true. One can accept anything as true, even contradictory premises.
Of course alternate premises can be, and should be, explored. That is the whole point of exploring the consequences of one’s premises; to find out if one’s premises produce a rationally coherent world-view.
I listed the basic premises required for a rationally coherent theistic worldview; they prevent “multiple gods” in that “god” is taken as the source of existence and as first/sufficient cause; no other entity can be both of those things as well.
If god is taken as the source of existence, and another “god” exists that the first god didn’t cause to exist, then the first god wouldn’t be the “source of existence” for the 2nd god, so the first god couldn’t be “the” source of existence.
The premises preclude the situations described in your challenge.
1) If you explore your “single-god” premise, your world-view would seem to hold.
2) If you explore my “multi-god” premise, your world-view would seem NOT to hold.
Why should I accept your unsupported “single god” premise over my unsupported “multi-god” premise?
Who could arbitrate this?
How could we know absolutely, not subjectively, which initial premise is true?
There’s no evidence that gods exist and no way to prove that gods don’t exist
except
any claim that’s testable for gods intervening in the real world has shown to be false when tested.
Gosh, WJM, I’m just a stoopid atheist. I have no idea whatsoever about this philosophy stuff, and I say there are no “establishment(s) and/or use(s) of evidence towards conclucsion” that are “rooted in, ordered by and interpreted through” philosophy.
This is where you shoot me down by providing at least one specific, solid example of how philosophy is used the way you say it’s used, okay? I await your response…
But that’s my point. Logic does not deal with evidence. It deals with premises. Those premises might be considered evidence, but such considerations are outside of logic. I have read a lot of philosophy of science and of epistemology, and I have not come across anything that looks like a definition of evidence, of how to gather evidence or of how to interpret evidence. That’s why I asked for citations — I would like to read such accounts if they are available.
It’s not about knowing which one is true; it’s about what the result of each premise yields. For instance, many cultures did believe there were many competing, capricious gods affecting all sorts of things. Virtually everything was contingent upon the whim of some god or another.
The reason a single-god premise (as source of existence, reason, good, and intention, and as first/sufficient cause) might be preferable is because it provides a rationally consistent., meaningful and efficient worldview as a consequence.
It has nothing to do with “which premise is right”, but rather whether or not one desires their worldview to be rationally consistent and coherent. Competing capricious gods does not provide the basis for an efficient, rational, morally discernible existence.
This is the reason that post-enlightenment Christianity, for example, was such a fertile ground for the development of science; the single-god (as premised) concept provided the grounds by which one would expect to find a rational, lawful, orderly universe that humans could successfully understand.
Any worldview must begin with epistemological and ontological premises. One can begin with a multi-god premise, a single-god premise, and various no-god premises; they can premise all sorts of foundational first principles.
Notice how you ask which premise can be found to be true; the idea that lies underneath that question is that “true” means something. What does “true” mean? Why should we expect to be able to make or discern true statements? By what system are true statements discerned? What are the requirements for us to have faith that such truth exists? What are the a priori commitments that establish “truth” as a meaningful concept in one’s worldview?
Without proper philosophical grounding, these concepts are simply stolen from other worldviews without merit. What does it mean when you make an argument about logic? Do you expect a logical argument to bear us closer to the truth? Why should it? Why should anyone expect it to? Etc.
I see .. according to you, scientists don’t use logic when they are acquiring and interpreting evidence in light of a hypothesis or theory; nor do forensic investigators use logic when they are acquiring facts and interpreting them as evidence; what do they use then? Emotion? Whim? How do they decide where to collect evidence, and how? Throw some darts at a board? Roll some dice?
When scientists collect facts and form a hypothesis, there is no logic involved? When they attempt to figure out what kind of experiment will collect meaningful data – still, no logic involved? When they set about fashioning the parameters and safeguards of the experiment to preserve the integrity of the data .. still, no logic in use? Why preserve the integrity of the data, if not because logic dictates it? Why collect data at all, if logic is not involved? Just make up the information you need.
After they collect the data and review it in light of the hypothesis or theory, still they use no logic to connect the information to the proposed ideas? What then … instinct? Flip a coin and use chance? Do they interpret the evidence according to what they need to secure their next grant?
That’s a complete misdirection.
That they use x, y and z at the same time in no way implies that x explains or defines y or z.
I know you cannot support your claim that “there is no evidence for god”, nor can you support your claim that “any claim that’s testable for gods intervening in the real world has shown to be false when tested.” – those are just your usual rhetoric.
The claim that there is evidence for god is easily validated, unless one is going to deny that over thousands of years millions of people (certainly more, but let’s be conservative) have testified that they have experienced god in one way or another.
Regardless of the quality of the evidence, testimony is in fact evidenced.
Furthermore, there are countless anecdotal stories about experiences of god; anecdotal evidence is evidence by definition.
Such testimonial and anecdotal evidence should, of course, be properly weighted with the usual skepticism one should view such evidence, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is evidence by definition.
Beyond that, we have the evidence of logical argument and conclusion, and the empirical evidence found in the fine-tuning and design arguments.
Cubist,
Evidence requires that first you know or have a fact. No facts can be said to be “known” without epistemological assumptions/models about what knowledge is and how it is acquired. Epistemology is phiosophy.
Furthermore, making true statements about that fact requires a philosophy of logic about how true statements are made.
All of the above requires ontological assumptions that hold “reality” to be something conducive to the collection of facts and the ability to make meaningfully true statements about them. Ontology is philosophy.
I agree with what you’ve said above. It’s the next statement that I see as a problem.
The existence you prefer is one that is efficient and morally discernible. In order to accept that world-view is possible, you NEED to have as a premise, a single god.
I don’t think that it is rational to mandate a certain input simply because you require a certain output. In any other logical thinking process we go through, we assess our inputs and if those inputs appear to be valid, we process them through our sequential logic until a result appears at the output.
It should be no different for any problem we want to solve, even if that problem is one of a deeper nature such as a world-view.
The existence we have now, is to me, not “efficient, rational, and morally discernible” in any way, even if it were the case that a single god existed.
I believe that evidence needs to be followed to its conclusion, not the other way around.
Regardless of what we desire, we need to process sequentially, from input to output, and then accept the result.
That is the only rational way to reach conclusions. If we don’t have premises that are valid, we have a “garbage-in / garbage-out” situation.
Come on, WJM. That’s not the “specific, solid example of how philosophy is used the way you say it’s used” I asked for; as absolute best, being as charitable to you as I can manage, it’s a bunch of handwavy verbiage that’s aimed in the general direction of the “specific, solid example of how philosophy is used the way you say it’s used” I asked for. Care to try again?
“rationally supportable”? I call bullshit. Your entire ‘argument’ consists of an overextended fallacy of Appeal to Consequences. Hell, you bloody near name it so yourself, when you make noise about comparing the respective consequences of the belief you favor and the belief you don’t like!
“I know you cannot support your claim that “there is no evidence for god”, nor can you support your claim that “any claim that’s testable for gods intervening in the real world has shown to be false when tested.” – those are just your usual rhetoric.”
They’re not rhetoric at all. They’re a fact.
“The claim that there is evidence for god is easily validated, unless one is going to deny that over thousands of years millions of people (certainly more, but let’s be conservative) have testified that they have experienced god in one way or another.”
You must be kidding.
“Regardless of the quality of the evidence, testimony is in fact evidenced.”
You must be kidding.
“Furthermore, there are countless anecdotal stories about experiences of god; anecdotal evidence is evidence by definition.”
You must be kidding.
“Such testimonial and anecdotal evidence should, of course, be properly weighted with the usual skepticism one should view such evidence, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is evidence by definition.”
You must be kidding.
“Beyond that, we have the evidence of logical argument and conclusion, and the empirical evidence found in the fine-tuning and design arguments.”
You must be kidding, and who’s “we”?
So you claim gods do exist* (which ones, by the way, a particular one, some or all?) and your evidence is according to your comment:
1. What people say.
2. The fine tuning argument.
3. The design argument.
I’ll point out what I see as the problems with 1.
There are a vast number of different dogmas, not just one, and, I suggest, much that is irreconcilable between different dogmas. They can’t all be true in every respect. Explanation; people make stuff up. So how do you choose what is true? Performance? There is no evidence for any factual religious claim that is not observable. So you make an arbitrary choice.
Is there any supporting evidence for the stuff people make up? For example. Well, as I said where controlled experiments have been done, no supernatural effects have been observed. I could say the flying spaghetti monster has never been observed and you could claim that I am making a positive assertion that I can’t support (though I suspect you may agree that, in this instance, I am right!).
So, I am sorry, for the strong claim that gods exist, anecdotes from people are suspect because we are aware of many conflicting claims, unsupported by any physical evidence. Now, you can say that I have no evidence for claiming there is no evidence, which is true. Demonstrating that, temporally and spatially across the known universe, there is and was no physical evidence for any gods is too tough for me. One piece of physical evidence counter to my claim refutes me. You (or anyone else who agrees that gods that intervene in the physical realm exist) ought to have the easier task.
Assuming your god is able to intervene in the universe (as you are an ID supporter,.I guess this must be so) that brings us neatly to 3. So why not discuss the validity of design theory and the evidence that an “intelligent designer” leaves fingerprints in the real world?
*If you do not think any god intervenes in the real world (deism, pantheism, panendeism etc) then we have no argument.
I listed the basic premises required for a rationally coherent theistic worldview; they prevent “multiple gods” in that “god” is taken as the source of existence and as first/sufficient cause; no other entity can be both of those things as well.
OK, I didn’t see this before my previous response where I said:
So just one god. Thus you must concede that people make stuff up, then, making anecdotal claims suspect without corroborating evidence.. Because there are conflicting dogmas and you assert that only one can be true.
As we seem to have been over the “evidence for God’s non-existence” more than once now, I’ll bow out. If you are really convinced there is a valid design argument that supports the idea of your particular candidate for God, maybe you could start a separate thread. Lizzie is keen to promote discussion on the subject, I am sure.
Toronto:
You have agreed with my proposition; that such a worldview requires god (as I have characterized it) as its foundational premise. We are in agreement.
In addition, I’d like to point out how your commentary above steals the very concepts (premises) that I have listed and accesses them for your own use – even though you obviously don’t realize it.
The only way to “reach valid conclusions” is via a premise that phenomena in the universe are rationally explicable and that true statements can be discerned about them; the only way you can make rationally make the case that “rational validity of conclusion” ought to be pursued over “personal preference or desire” is if morality (the system of how one ought to behave) describes an objective good; otherwise, you have no warrant to tell me:
If what we “ought” to do is subjective, your claim about what we “need” to do whether or not we desire that conclusion is unfounded.
You see, you cannot even make an argument about what is logical and expect it to matter or be true, nor can you argue about what is the “right” thing to do in terms of what our methods “ought” to be pursuing and why, without accessing the very premises (god and the characteristics outlined) you have agreed above are necessary to produce such a worldview.
If “oughts” describe no objective good, then you have no basis for telling me how I “ought” to arrange my activities (much less the all-inclusive “we”), and if reason is not expected to be anything more than what any individual happens to think it is (without any objective source of reason/logic that establishes what it is and grounds reason for the expectation that it is a valid means of acquiring true knowledge about the universe), then how can you justify your attempt to make a reason-based argument about what is true, what I (and “we”) ought to do (need to do), and expect anyone to care about it as if it was establishing objectively true statements we “need” to adhere to?
You see, you cannot make a counter-argument like you made without stealing the very premises you have said are based on need and not fact, because such arguments necessarily require the premises I have listed and you have agreed are needed for the worldview that serves as basis for such arguments.
Yes, we need such premises, whether they are factual or not, to have a basis for our rational arguments about what is true, and our perspective that all humans (we) “ought” (need) to do certain things. That is why they are necessary premises – whether they are true or not. Becuause “what is true” is not a meaningful concept without them as basis for making claims about “what is true”.
Without the premises I have outlined, “what is true” and “what we need to do” become nothing more than rhetorical arguments.
Claiming something is a fact is not supporting it, and “you must be kidding” is not a rebuttal. Such comments are nothing but the very rhetoric I said such claims are based on.
Feel free to support the claims you have asserted as fact with something other than rhetoric.
People make stuff up about all kinds of things. Because people make stuff up doesn’t mean there is no means by which to discern what is true and what is not, or at least what is more likely true than not.
I haven’t asserted that “only one dogma can be true”. I haven’t made a case for any dogma whatsoever; I’ve made a case against all dogma, that all claims about god or morality should be evaluated according to sound logic based upon necessary premises.
That there are different dogmas and accounts of experiences of god that contradict each other is of no more consequence than the fact that witnesses to a crime often testify to contradictory descriptions of a suspect; that doesn’t undermine the view that a crime occurred – it just undermines trust in the description of the perpetrator.
Because people subjectively interpret all things doesn’t mean that all things do not exist outside of their mind. When it is warranted, we expect that the things people subjectively describe actually, objectively exist.
The question isn’t if “evidence for god” exists – it does, and in great magnitude, considering the weight of testimony and anecdote available. The question is what conclusion the available evidence warrants.
I’d be happy to submit my argument that, if one is apprised of the available evidence, atheism of any sort is an irrational position.
However, any reasonable person, IMO, can just look over the weight of testimony and anecdote and realize the weight of available evidence favors the view that a god of some sort more likely exists than not, and that atheism requires that one deny all available evidence as evidence, dismissing with prejudice all such evidence as lies, delusion, or error.
Both claims can be falsified readily by presenting evidence for the existence of a god and its intervention in the world. As a rationalist, I know you will agree that dismissing them as simply “rhetoric” is neither a counter-argument nor evidence that they are false. You will also agree that evidence, for scientific purposes, involves observations and experiments that are repeatable by anyone who chooses.
Again, as a rationalist, you will be aware that argumentum ad populum is a fallacy in logic. The fact that many people believe something to be true does not necessarily make it so. For example, millions of people over thousands of years believed that the Sun orbited the Earth, not surprisingly, because that is what they observed. We now know that they were wrong because we have replicable evidence that the Earth orbits the Sun.
The other problem with historical anecdotal evidence, even on this scale, is that it is of little value unless there is some way to verify it experimentally today. It might, for example, indicate not the existence of a god but only a deep-seated need for such an all-powerful protector by fragile and vulnerable creatures like ourselves.
Countless anecdotes about experiences of god are evidence that a large number of people report similar experiences, not that this god exists. As before, on their own they may indicate nothing more than the existence of a common human need for such a being.
Eyewitness testimony can be evidence, yes, but we have be cautious. There is sufficient experimental evidence now of just how easily eyewitnesses can be misled to make us very wary of uncorroborated accounts of anything.
A valid logical argument only guarantees that the conclusion is entailed by the premisses. If the premisses are false or nonsensical then so is the conclusion. In fact, as I’m sure you’re aware, it is quite possible to construct a perfectly valid argument that is complete nonsense.
The fine-tuning argument is not itself empirical evidence although the observations and calculations concerning the values of certain fundamental variables are. But all they show is that if those values differed in some cases even slightly our universe could not exist as it is. It is a leap of faith from there to the belief that some sort of god or creator must have been responsible.
The design argument is also not, in itself, empirical evidence. Essentially it is an argument from incredulity and probability . Design proponents point to the complexity of biological structures and claim that it is inconceivable that they could have arisen through natural processes, that they must, therefore, be evidence of the activities of an intelligent designer. But this may only be evidence of the limits of human knowledge and imagination not of nature itself. They also calculate that this universe is too improbable to have arisen from natural causes but those calculations have been examined and criticized as flawed by other competent scholars. As things stand, you can say that the design argument is an interesting conjecture but little more.
Eyewitness testimony is the least reliable form of evidence. Ask any defense attorney.
It isn’t worthless, but it isn’t convincing unless it is bolstered by other lines of evidence
Hundreds of people convicted on eyewitness testimony have been freed by DNA evidence.
This is also why experiments often require replication by independent experimenters.
It’s not my job to demonstrate false or provide a counter-argument to bald assertions. Until such positive assertions are supported via argument and evidence, they cannot be taken as anything other than rhetorical.
The claims weren’t that there was no scientific evidence, but rather that there was no evidence. I agree that scientific evidence is as you say.
I didn’t make such an argument. I didn’t make an appeal to “what people believe” as an indicator of “what is true or more likely true”, I pointed out that testimony is evidence by definition. We commonly accept testimonial evidence in virtually every aspect of life that at the very least something is slightly more likely to be true than not; to hold testimony of experiences of god to a different standard simply because on has an a priori bias against it is selectively hyperskeptical.
That you consider it “of little value” doesn’t negate it from being anecdotal evidence. As I said, that we weigh different kinds and sources of evidence differently, doesn’t change the fact that it is evidence.
In the hypothesis that god exists, “countless anecdotal experiences of god” do in fact support the hypothesis that god exists in the same way that in the hypothesis that a drug is causing a side effect that was not uncovered in testing, “countless anecdotal experiences of the side effect” after taking the drug is not just evidence that ” a large number of people report similar experiences”.
People reporting similar experiences is anecdotal evidence that those experiences are of something real. Should that be convincing evidence? Probably not, but a rational person cannot be selectively hyperskeptical about such evidence simply because they are predisposed against the idea in the first place.
A good way to examine one’s position for selective hyperskepticism due to a priori bias, is to see if they maintain the same level of skepticism against anecdotal and testimonial evidence when it comes to other things. For example, is testimony not accepted as evidence in any other area of one’s life? Are anecdotal stories all dismissed out of hand regardless of how many people “report similar experiences”? If millions of people report the experience of a negative reaction to a drug, or report increased levels of anxiety when their environment is a certain color, are all such anecdotal reports dismissed the same way?
Or, do they serve as prima facie evidence that there might be something substantial to such claims that needs to be more thoroughly investigated?
That such evidence can be interpreted in other ways doesn’t change the fact that such evidence can be reasonably interpreted to support the claim that a god of some sort exists.
In what case is eyewitness testimony not evidence? Also, testimony is not limited to “eyewitness” testimony, but is rather about germane experience and expertise (a blind person can testify; an expert witness can testify).
Being wary of testimony, or skeptical of it, doesn’t change the fact that it is evidence. I’m not making a case that such evidence should be held as compelling or convincing; I’m rebutting the claim that “there is no evidence” for or supporting the existence of god. Such a claim is simply nonsense.
Because argument in general might be nonsense is not an argument or rebuttal against the various logical arguments for god; if the arguments are valid and meaningful (such as, they point to a god of some sort as a necessary premise for a rationally consistent worldview), then they serve as evidence supporting the hypothesis that god exists.
Which is exactly what I said. The fine-tuning argument is a logical argument for god derived from scientific, empirical evidence.
The argument shows that there is no reason to expect a habitable universe without a deliberate fine-tuning of the initial conditions. That’s not a “leap of faith”; that’s abductive reasoning to best conclusion (in terms of necessary premises).
Again, I didn’t say it was; I said the evidence used in it is.
This and what follows is essentially a straw man characterization of the argument from design.
Then it’s a good thing I didn’t say it should be “convincing” evidence. We agree, however, that it is evidence, and so the claim “there is no evidence for god” is patently false.
BTW, whether or not eyewitness testimony is “convincing” is up to those hearing the testimony. However, I can probably easily refute your claim that “testimony” shouldn’t be convincing in and of itself, even in regards to your personal everyday life, if you wish.
The problem is that we have reams of evidence, both anecdotal and from carefully controlled experiments, that eyewitness testimony is nearly worthless.
It’s value can be augmented if many accounts agree on key points, but its value is degraded when accounts differ.
I will refrain from commenting on which category fits religion.
I have had several experiences which are qualitatively similar to religious experiences, except they had no religious theme or content. I have experienced epiphanies a number of times, some of them powerful enough to bring me to tears, but none involved religious themes or content.
I leads me to suspect that the brain mechanisms that give rise to religious experience can be channeled to religion, but that they exist for some other reason.
What we are in agreement on is that your world-view requires a “single-god”, while a world-view based on “multi-gods/multi-entities” , would be different.
I am not in any way saying that your world-view is based on a valid premise.
That was my point.That your world-view “demands” a certain unvalidated premise.
If I input a “different” unvalidated premise,……I get a “different” world-view.
Here you have jumped layers.
An example ought: “Before you head out on vacation, you should check your tire pressure.”
Is that a moral statement based on a “absolute good” world-view?
I think that statement is local in scope, and that scope is purely materialistic.
If you don’t check your tire pressure, you may have a blow-out on the road.
The mechanism of relating a future effect to a current decision is not in itself a moral statement, it is a mechanistic statement.
You cannot claim that every forward-looking decision, is based on morality.
Whether an “ought” is a moral statement is outside the scope of a decision-making mechanism or process, just like the process of logic lies outside of any logical conclusion that is derived by using that mechanism.
To go one step further, in logic, “truth” means “1”, nothing else. It was a word that was used, one of many that could have been used, in place of “1” as related to its negative sense, “0”.
That’s the problem. You “need” the premise to be true, so you don’t entertain that a different premise is possible.
There may be one god, no gods, multi-gods, or non-sentient entities, all uncaused.
To claim that any particular one is valid, simply based on a world-view that you like, is not rational.
It is also subjective.
Once again, the current point isn’t about how any person should interpret or assess such evidence; the point is only that it exists.
The only “need” in the argument is that if one wants to have a rationally coherent worldview, they “need” to base it on premises that can support such a worldview.
If you are willing to accept a worldview that is rationally incoherent, you are free to utlize whatever premises you wish.
WJM, all of your assertions are bald, none are supported by evidence, and they are all rhetoric. You like to play word games, but it’s not getting you anywhere. You’re a typical, irrational, illogical theist who likes to argue just for the sake of arguing. There’s no point in trying to get anything rational across to you because you’re already convinced that you have everything figured out, and that because a lot of people agree with you about the existence of a god you must be right. I would hate to be locked into such limited thinking.
The world-view I have to accept may not be one that I prefer, but if it is rational, that is the one I have to go with.
You however, have decided to accept a world-view based on a preference, i.e, that there is one god, your particular and subjective initial premise.
You have worked from your conclusion, backwards to your premise.
In effect, you’re not following the evidence to where it leads, instead, you’re manufacturing evidence to justify where you want to be.
You’re mistaking premises for assertions. Assertions are claims of fact that are subject to challenge. Premises are assumed to be true for the sake of pursuing the logical consequences thereof.
Further, your characterization of my motives is erroneous. I’m hardly convinced that I have everything figured out, nor does it matter if anyone else agrees with me or not.