Why I'm an Atheist. By Ricky Gervais

[alexey]

I make the decision to believe in God on a daily basis and so do many other people in this thread.

It isn't that hard if you are going to talk about it like that.

It is easy for you because you practiced making that decision.

---------- Post added January-20th-2011 at 06:43 PM ----------

alexey, honestly this is one of the worse post I've ever read by a poster that I would generally say I respect.

As near as I can tell, you are essentially saying that you've reached the conclusion that it is likely that god doesn't exist, but in reaching that conclusion I've refused to use methods that would actually allow me to conclude that it is likely that god exists.

If your methods prevent you from ever concluding god exists, then they certainly can't allow you to conclude that god does exists.

I picked the method for reasons other than the answer it provides in relation to God.

[PeterMP]

It is easy for you because you practiced making that decision.

---------- Post added January-20th-2011 at 06:43 PM ----------

I picked the method for reasons other than the answer it provides in relation to God.

So if you practiced believing in God, then you'd be able to believe in God?

I don't really see how the reasons are relevant. It still doesn't make sense. A method that can't find evidence in support of something existing can't then be taken as evidence that it doesn't exist when it fails to find evidence supporting it.

If I refuse you to use methods that allowed me to determine the distance between the goal line and the 10 yard line, I then can't conclude that distance isn't 10 yards when the methods I have used have failed to allow me to find evidence supporting that it is 10 years.

Even more unbelievable is refusing to use things to measure of distance when people all around me are pointing to a pile of yard sticks and saying, 'if you want to measure distance, you have to use yard sticks.'

[.Guy.]

I am not sure I can take any religion seriously since there are so many falsehoods in every religious text.

How is one supposed to have faith in something that sits on such shaky ground.

[alexey]

So if you practiced believing in God, then you'd be able to believe in God?

If we are still talking about excercising control over one's own brain, then yes. Practicing something makes it easier.

I don't really see how the reasons are relevant. It still doesn't make sense. A method that can't find evidence in support of something existing can't then be taken as evidence that it doesn't exist when it fails to find evidence supporting it.

I am not denying the existence of an unknown power, a pattern, etc, "something". I am just saying that, in light of the evolution of human religious thought, it is highly unlikely that any particular human religion has "got it right".

When I am talking about "God that almost certainly does not exist", I am talking about some kind of a sentient being (or a pantheon), different forms of which have been imagined throughout history by numerous religions. I should have probably clarified that from the beginning.

[techboy]

I don't think you fully understand the concept of the Big Bang.

Uh, okay.

In any case, you don't actually say so, but given your rather vague language involving "spread out" and "collisions", I'm thinking you're referring to the Ekpyrotic proposal, by Dr. Paul Steinhardt (among others), which rather than being what the Big Bang "only" refers to, is instead a relatively new proposal to explain the Big Bang (i.e. Brane collision). I suppose that you might want to take note of this little tidbit at the end:

As a final remark, we feel that it is important to realize that inflationary theory is based on quantum field theory, a well-established theoretical framework, and the model has been carefully studied and vetted for twenty years. Our proposal is based on unproven ideas in string theory and is brand new. While we appreciate the enthusiasm and interest with which the paper has been received, we would suggest some patience before promulgating these ideas in order to leave time for us to produce some follow-up papers that introduce additional elements and to allow fellow theorists time for criticism and sober judgment.

In any case, this is not what the standard Big Bang model says (and what I was referring to), but a proposed alternative to the standard model, which is what I was referring to. Since I have a hard time understanding this stuff, I'll keep it simple with this page from CERN: The Big Bang:

According to most astrophysicists, all the matter found in the universe today -- including the matter in people, plants, animals, the earth, stars, and galaxies -- was created at the very first moment of time, thought to be about 13 billion years ago.

The universe began, scientists believe, with every speck of its energy jammed into a very tiny point. This extremely dense point exploded with unimaginable force, creating matter and propelling it outward to make the billions of galaxies of our vast universe. Astrophysicists dubbed this titanic explosion the Big Bang.

Hmmm... Looks like CERN is confused too. I hope whoever helped with that page isn't working on the Large Hadron Collider. That would be embarrassing.

I'd note, by the way, that even if the Ekpyrotic proposal is experimentally verified, it still falls under the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem, and so has a finite age, and therefore a beginning.

I.E., the universe is not eternal. Which was, if you will recall, my only point in all of this.

We talked about the Many Worlds Hypothesis a bit earlier, and though I stand by my comments regarding it, I can recommend Vilenkins book Many Worlds in One. It's a very easy and enjoyable read. For a book about reincarnation. In any case, this quote is from pg. 176:

It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.

Observing order does not imply the presence of design.

I would love to see where I made this assertion. The few examples of fine tuning I've actually talked about go way beyond the simple appearance of order.

Science backs up the theists?

Robert Jastrow (his wikipedia page, and an agnostic, by the way) famously wrote in God and the Astronomers, page 116:

For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.

As I noted, there are several areas where science seems to point to a creator. We've discussed a couple here. Francis S. Collins' website, The Biologos Forum, has a bunch more.

Are you being serious?

Usually, yes.

All science has ever done is compete with theism.

That's an uncharitable and at least partially inaccurate view. I'd suggest reading What is the proper relationship between science and religion?, by Denis Alexander (his wikipedia page), a molecular biologist at St Edmund's College, Cambridge, and director of their Faraday Institute for Science and Religion. An excerpt:

For centuries, religion has had plenty to say to science. To keep the discussion concise, the development of modern science is a good example. It is often thought that religious belief was actually a hindrance to the early progress of science, and the disagreement between the church and Galileo (see below) is cited as a popular case. However, religious belief actually was entirely compatible with scientific progress. For example, when the top 52 scientists during the emergence of modern science in medieval Europe were surveyed for their religious beliefs, 62 percent could be classified as devout, 35 percent as conventionally religious, and only two scientists, 3.8% percent, could be classified as skeptics.4 Given that many of these scientists — referred to as natural philosophers — helped lay the foundation for modern science, there is hardly room to suggest there was any incompatibility between scientific advancement and religion. With those statistics in mind, it should not be surprising that a religious worldview played a significant role in nurturing the development of modern science. This is well summarized by professor Roger Trigg:

"Their belief in God gave them confidence that the physical world, in all its complexity and vast extent, could be understood. […] As a matter of historical fact, modern science has developed from an understanding of the world as God’s ordered Creation, with its own inherent rationality." 5

This is not to say that modern science would never have developed without the aid of religious faith. However, if religious belief can also function as a framework within which scientific progress flourishes, then there is certainly substantive interplay between the two bodies of knowledge.

Furthermore, religion has not only served to advance scientific discovery, but it also exerts a positive and significant influence on the practical application of scientific discoveries. With the constant advance of technology and medicine, new questions are continually raised as to what applications should be deemed ethically acceptable.6 (See Collins’s Appendix in The Language of God.) The scientific method alone does not provide a way of answering these ethical questions but can only help in mapping out the possible alternatives. Such ethical concerns are only resolved by standards of morality that find grounding and authority through faith in a higher being.

I'd note as an aside that the fundamental accessibility of the Universe and its laws, the rationality discussed by professor Trigg that was so useful to those early scientists, is something we would expect in a theistic world, but would have no reason to hope for in a naturalistic world. Another pointer.

Do you believe science can prove the existence of a theistic god?

Science is bound by methodological naturalism, and so cannot "prove" or "disprove" (as much as those terms mean in science) the existence of the supernatural.

If, however, the supernatural infringes on the natural world, it can measure and study the natural results, and so provide some level of confirmation (or disconfirmation) to a particular religious view or argument for the existence of God.

We've mostly been talking about arguments for here, but here's an example of disconfirmation. Some Christians think the Earth is 6,000-11,000 years old. The science of geology (among others) tells us that this is very probably not true.

I picked the method for reasons other than the answer it provides in relation to God.

I'm having a difficult time understanding how any particular method of reasoning would be somehow able to access the supernatural in order to offer disconfirmation (or even proof against), but not able to access the supernatural in order to provide confirmation or proof in the positive.

---------- Post added January-20th-2011 at 08:37 PM ----------

I am not denying the existence of an unknown power, a pattern, etc, "something". I am just saying that, in light of the evolution of human religious thought, it is highly unlikely that any particular human religion has "got it right".

My post is long enough, and this is only going to be added to it, so I'll let Peter take this, but I just wanted to note that I recently read a piece in the Guardian by the aforementioned Dr. Alexander: Beware evolutionary 'just-so' stories about religious belief. You might want to check it out.

[alexey]

I'm having a difficult time understanding how any particular method of reasoning would be somehow able to access the supernatural in order to offer disconfirmation (or even proof against), but not able to access the supernatural in order to provide confirmation or proof in the positive.

Let's say that some people believe in existence of a supernatural agent XYZ. A visitation by XYZ causes people to realize something and have an "aha" moment. Based on what we know about neurobiology, we can provide a natural explanation for those "aha" moments. In some ways that allows us to say that existence of XYZ is unlikely. Yet at the same time it does not really tell us anything about the existence of XYZ.

In my view, if natural explanations are more than sufficient to account for available evidence, then there is simply no need to postulate the supernatural. (unless there is some benefit in doing so, and you go with the pragmatic/utilitarian perspective... and btw I do think that properly handled religious customs and belief can have TONS of benefits.)

My post is long enough, and this is only going to be added to it, so I'll let Peter take this, but I just wanted to note that I recently read a piece in the Guardian by the aforementioned Dr. Alexander: Beware evolutionary 'just-so' stories about religious belief. You might want to check it out.

Thank you. I read the piece, and I am really not impressed by Dr. Alexander's dismissive treatment (or perhaps utter lack of understanding) of cognitive psychology and neurobiology.

[PeterMP]

If we are still talking about excercising control over one's own brain, then yes. Practicing something makes it easier.

I am not denying the existence of an unknown power, a pattern, etc, "something". I am just saying that, in light of the evolution of human religious thought, it is highly unlikely that any particular human religion has "got it right".

When I am talking about "God that almost certainly does not exist", I am talking about some kind of a sentient being (or a pantheon), different forms of which have been imagined throughout history by numerous religions. I should have probably clarified that from the beginning.

1. So your failure to believe in god has nothing to do with evidence or logic. It is simply the result of your failure to practice believing in God?

2. Using the same logic and same language, then I guess you should also be willing to state:

Matter almost certainly does not exist.

The Universe almost certainly does not exist.

[The Sisko]

Why would you believe you are intrinsically good (or not good)? You might argue that you are more "fit" (from an evolutionary perspective) than others, but fitness depends on conditions and so it is also completely possible, that you actually are LESS fit than most others (your genetic material was more fit, but that was based on conditions 25 years ago) and your genetic material will be completely lost in the future so you are essentially a waste of resources in an evolutionary dead end (I know that sounds cold and don't honestly mean directly at you, but am using the pronoun you in response to your use of the pronoun I. Feel free to subsitute me, I, us, we, them, him, her, you (meaning me) etc as you desire).

And good and not good don't even make any sense.

If I'm understanding you correctly, I think you may have missed my point. I was referring to the source of my value system. So in that context, "good" meant adhering to a certain system of values and "bad" the opposite. I was simply trying to say that for me, it's more important and rewarding to do the "right" thing based on my reasons rather than those that allegedly come from a deity. This point by itself doesn't have much, if anything to do with the core point of the thread. Rather, it was a comment directed at those who feel the need to pity us poor heathens.

To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, Pop Tarts are proof that God exists and wants us to be happy.

And to paraphrase me, the existence of the Dallass Cowpukes is proof that there is no intelligent design to the universe.

[alexey]

1. So your failure to believe in god has nothing to do with evidence or logic. It is simply the result of your failure to practice believing in God?

It is possible to cultivate a belief in God by practicing. It is also possible to employ logic and arrive to a decision not to practice.

[RansomthePasserby]

And to paraphrase me, the existence of the Dallass Cowpukes is proof that there is no intelligent design to the universe.

Naw, just proof God has a sense of humor.

[techboy]

alexey, your latest edit is rather interesting, because with the new material you added, it would seem that this claim:

Based on what we know about neurobiology, we can provide a natural explanation for those "aha" moments. In some ways that allows us to say that existence of XYZ is unlikely.

Stands in contradiction to this claim in your very next sentence:

Yet at the same time it does not really tell us anything about the existence of XYZ.

Which I largely agree with.

In my view, if natural explanations are more than sufficient to account for available evidence, then there is simply no need to postulate the supernatural.

I actually agree, but it's a huge leap to go from "no reason to believe" or "no need to postulate" to "almost certainly does not exist" or "unlikely".

If, for example, we take a look at your account of the origins of religious belief, and we ignore the criticisms of PeterMP earlier in this thread and Dr. Alexander in the article, and assume that some combination of evolutionary biology and psychology provide a completely satisfying explanation, then what we have established is that for the nontheist (and even the theist, really), there is absolutely no reason to appeal to the divine to explain the phenomenon.

On the other hand, if God were to work through evolution to develop man, as seems reasonable, and He wanted to instill religious belief in him, as He plausibly might want to, it is easy to see that He might create the proper evolutionary pressures for this to take place, and it would be pretty much indistinguishable to a biologist or psychologist in the natural world.

Now this "just so" story is not, of course, a reason to believe in God, or that He actually did this, and I think a fair case could be made that this kind of thing would be more likely in a natualistic world (where it's necessary) than a theistic one (where it's only one of many possibilities), so it might even point away from theism in a cumulative case, but it also certainly shows that it, in and of itself, is not a reason to disbelieve in God either (and thus the tension in your post, I think).

I'd also point out that along these lines, if the existence of religious belief was the only data to consider (and again, assuming your theory is correct), there'd be no reason to believe in God, but it's not the only data to consider. It's just one piece of many.

Another problem I see with your approach is that it would seem that your basic reasoning is that since religious belief arose from apparently blind evolutionary forces, it is suspect and not to be trusted.

The problem here is that this observation cuts both ways. There is no reason to expect that blind evolution, which is based solely on the survival of genes, would give you the ability to correctly reason about the existence of God, and in fact, you actually hold that blind evolution has driven humanity to incorrect beliefs about the existence of God (i.e., religion), so there's no reason for you to trust your own conclusions on that front. This is generally where you make some comment about "rising above evolution", but in a naturalistic world, that's impossible.

And to paraphrase me, the existence of the Dallass Cowpukes is proof that there is no intelligent design to the universe.

This is definitely a pointer to a naturalistic world, but remember, we need to consider all the pointers in toto.

It is possible to cultivate a belief in God by practicing. It is also possible to employ logic and arrive to a decision not to practice.

This would seem to be exactly opposite to the reports of many people, including a couple in this thread, such as Predicto, who says he wants to believe and cannot.

[PeterMP]

If I'm understanding you correctly, I think you may have missed my point. I was referring to the source of my value system. So in that context, "good" meant adhering to a certain system of values and "bad" the opposite. I was simply trying to say that for me, it's more important and rewarding to do the "right" thing based on my reasons rather than those that allegedly come from a deity. This point by itself doesn't have much, if anything to do with the core point of the thread. Rather, it was a comment directed at those who feel the need to pity us poor heathens.

Well, I don't pity heathens For all I know, god might judge on a sliding scale basis and for various reasons they might be in better shape than me. It is also possible that god doesn't judge on a sliding scale and only the Amish have it right and again the vast majority of us are in trouble.

I do pity people that refuse to see their "beliefs" to their logical conclusion.

If there is no god, then there is no free will. Gervais didn't really have a "choice" to become an atheists. The "decision" was dictated completely by his physiological state at the time.

His physiological state is dependent upon his DNA and other stochastic processes.

At its heart, It is no different then if I go into the lab and add hydrogen peroxide to a culture of bacteria (the difference is the level of complexity). They are even genetically identical (or at least can be). Yet they make different "decisions" based on how much hydrogen peroxide the "experience" (which is a function of diffusion) and their response to it (where the only difference is internal stochastic differences since they are genetically identical).

I'm sure some are looking at the "decisions" the others made and "thinking" that guy is an idiot.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17530173

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15028708

If you believe you actually have a "choice", then you have no choice, but to believe in god (based on our current understanding of biology).

---------- Post added January-21st-2011 at 06:45 AM ----------

It is possible to cultivate a belief in God by practicing. It is also possible to employ logic and arrive to a decision not to practice.

But based on the model you seem to be articulating, the logic and belief are interrelated. If you have a choice to believe, then you have the choice to logically consider the evidence differently (for example, by not using ONLY methods that would prevent you from determining that there is a god), which then means you'd come to a different logical decision about what to believe.

By practicing believing in god, you actually alter your logical conclusion (and of course vice versa), by making a decisions not to believe in god, you actually alter your logical conclusion.

[MartinC]

Let me start by saying I'm an atheist.

Now let me ask a very simple question to either side of this debate - why does it matter if God exists or not?

If you believe in supreme being or creator great. If you don't also great. Whatever gets you through the night and all that.

Whats important to my mind are the value systems you develop through teaching, experience and use of whatever reason you have and how you live your life and the decisions you make in relation to that. Most peoples value systems have some basis from organised religon - ten commandments etc. I know mine do - and thats a positive contribution organised religion has made to modern society in general. If some choose to then believe in the more spiritual aspects of religion more power to their elbow - as long as they dont use that belief as part of a value system which enable sthem to blow themselves and other people up for example.

I dont believe.

Why some people who are religous feel the need to try to force their views on other people and visa versa has always puzzled me. Its started the odd war as well down the years ....

(Quick aside - there are actually 17 commandments listed in the bible under Exodus and then a second set of slightly different commandments again with about 14 or 15 statements depending on how you interpret them in Deuteronomy. Sub editors eh!)

[CrabR]

Jews recognize over 600 Commandments

[MartinC]

Jews recognize over 600 Commandments

600!?! I guess the rest of us just use the Cliff Notes version

[CrabR]

Christians ignore them because they think they are only for the jews/Israel and paul said they do not need to follow them. That is why a Christian with a damaged testicle can enter into the house of the lord but a Jew cant

people here are talking about logic but they do not apply to their own book. i would hazard to guess most believers have never read the bible just some passages

[mardi gras skin]

Christians ignore them because they think they are only for the jews/Israel and paul said they do not need to follow them. That is why a Christian with a damaged testicle can enter into the house of the lord but a Jew cant

people here are talking about logic but they do not apply to their own book.

I think NT Wright has a fairly logical take on the authority of the Old Testament and New Testament in the life of a Christian.

http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Bible_Authoritative.htm

[brandymac27]

I think before anyone can claim that there is no God, we have to be able to trace the roots of religion. When you study the Sumerians, you can start to see those roots and how they have manifested into what we call Judaism/Christianity/and Islam. (BTW, if anyone has any info on this subject that predates the Sumerians I'd love to hear about it)

People always claim that Christianity borrowed "this" or "that" from some pagan religion, but when you think about how religion has evolved, as everything around us evolves, it's easy to see how a pagan deity, such as Enlil for example, became Yaweh. In my mind, I can see how one of these pagan deities did eventually turn into a monotheistic God. To me, that idea doesn't sound that far fetched.

Forget for a minute that Christianity may have borrowed anything and take a quick look at the much older religion of Judaism. The Sumerians had a "paradise", flood story, a "lady of the rib" among other things.

A dispute existed also between the god Enki and a mother goddess, Ninhursag -- perhaps originally the earth goddess Ki. Ninhursag made eight plants sprout in a divine garden, plants created from three generations of goddesses fathered by Enki. These goddesses were described as having been born "without pain or travail." Then trouble came as Enki ate the plants that Ninhursag had grown. Ninhursag responded with rage. She pronounced a curse of death on Enki, and Enki's health began to fail. Eight parts of Enki's body -- one for each of the eight plants that he ate -- became diseased, one of which was his rib. The goddess Ninhursag then disappeared so as not to let sympathy for Enki change her mind about her sentence of death upon him. But she finally relented and returned to heal Enki. She created eight healing deities -- eight more goddesses -- one for each of Enki's ailing body parts. And the goddess who healed Enki's rib was Nin-ti, a name that in Sumerian meant "lady of the rib," which describes a character who was to appear in a different role in Hebrew writings centuries later, a character to be called Eve.

http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/religion03.htm

So if there are some similarities b/w the ancient Sumerian gods and Judaism, why wouldn't there be similarities or "borrowed" aspects in Christianity if Christianity uses parts of the OT that include the Garden of Eden, the rib story, and the flood story?

In my personal opinion, it's harder to argue this point than it is to argue that Christianity borrowed from Mithra(ism), etc.

[mcsluggo]

agreed...

i completely disagree... and furthermore I will contend that most people that make this progression of "logic" and come to their firmly held belief that they have deduced the basic underpinnings of EVERYTHING, do so in their late teen or early twenties. Basically when they are just stretching their "intelectual wings" for the first time, but basically are lazy thinkers when compared to their OWN potential, and how good their OWN analytical insights will get eventually with more seasoning and wisdom over the next 30 or years- not on THIS subject, but just their capacity for tackling problems overall. Frankly i think that people that have convinced themselves that there is no chance that there is some component to all of THIS that is beyond their ability to logic through... are lazy thinkers.

Not being CONVINCED that there IS some greater being is an entirely different matter.

of course... the other side of the equation is that people that have great faith MOSTLY were raised into that faith by their parents, meaning that they made the great leap of logic that there IS some greater power at an even less intelectaully vigorous age (wat... 4?) . So there is that... but also people with faith in a God also explicitly underpin their faith in an belief that they personally don't understand all, by design, and that the wisdom of what they believe is passed down to them from others that have had a closer direct connection with God. In THAT case it comes down to whether or not you believe that those people, who you have never met, are charlatans, or not.

[MartinC]

So there is that... but also people with faith in a God also explicitly underpin their faith in an belief that they personally don't understand all, by design, and that the wisdom of what they believe is passed down to them from others that have had a closer direct connection with God. In THAT case it comes down to whether or not you believe that those people, who you have never met, are charlatans, or not.

What are the odds

[alexey]

alexey, your latest edit is rather interesting, because with the new material you added, it would seem that this claim:

"Based on what we know about neurobiology, we can provide a natural explanation for those "aha" moments. In some ways that allows us to say that existence of XYZ is unlikely." - alexey

Stands in contradiction to this claim in your very next sentence:

Yet at the same time it does not really tell us anything about the existence of XYZ. - alexey

Which I largely agree with.

In my view, if natural explanations are more than sufficient to account for available evidence, then there is simply no need to postulate the supernatural. - alexey

I actually agree, but it's a huge leap to go from "no reason to believe" or "no need to postulate" to "almost certainly does not exist" or "unlikely".

If, for example, we take a look at your account of the origins of religious belief, and we ignore the criticisms of PeterMP earlier in this thread and Dr. Alexander in the article, and assume that some combination of evolutionary biology and psychology provide a completely satisfying explanation, then what we have established is that for the nontheist (and even the theist, really), there is absolutely no reason to appeal to the divine to explain the phenomenon.

On the other hand, if God were to work through evolution to develop man, as seems reasonable, and He wanted to instill religious belief in him, as He plausibly might want to, it is easy to see that He might create the proper evolutionary pressures for this to take place, and it would be pretty much indistinguishable to a biologist or psychologist in the natural world.

Now this "just so" story is not, of course, a reason to believe in God, or that He actually did this, and I think a fair case could be made that this kind of thing would be more likely in a natualistic world (where it's necessary) than a theistic one (where it's only one of many possibilities), so it might even point away from theism in a cumulative case, but it also certainly shows that it, in and of itself, is not a reason to disbelieve in God either (and thus the tension in your post, I think).

Yep, things get messy when we try to discuss knowledge of the unknowable and talk about probabilities of the unobservable

I think the issue here is, again, the tricky switch between the natural and the supernatural, the knowable and the unknowable. When we talk about the natural and the knowable, our assessment of probabilities is based on stuff like laws of nature and observable events. When we talk about the supernatural and the unknowable, our assessment of probabilities is based on the way we decide to think about stuff.

These processes may use the same word, but there is very little in common between them. My approach includes looking at a wide variety of human religions and not seeing a compelling reason to say that a particular one has gotten it right. In the context of that approach, I can meaningfully speak about reasons why I consider it unlikely that God exists as he/she/it/they is/are visualized by Christianity, Islam, Judaism, ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Sumerians, various pagan religions, and so on. Yet statements that I make are only meaningful in the context in which I am making them. They would have a different meaning, or perhaps no meaning at all, outside of that context.

In a similar fashion, when Dr. Alexander, or Dr. Craig, or NT Wright make statements about the existence of God, they are making those statements in a particular context. In their context existence of God may indeed be likely, or it may even be a certainty. I do not see multiple contradictory statements there. I see multiple correct statements in different contexts.

The problem here is that this observation cuts both ways. There is no reason to expect that blind evolution, which is based solely on the survival of genes, would give you the ability to correctly reason about the existence of God, and in fact, you actually hold that blind evolution has driven humanity to incorrect beliefs about the existence of God (i.e., religion), so there's no reason for you to trust your own conclusions on that front. This is generally where you make some comment about "rising above evolution", but in a naturalistic world, that's impossible.

Since there is no way of knowing which system is correct, I decided to focus on figuring out what kind of a system is worth having and how to build it

(something along the lines of William James' pragmatism, but not as extreme in a sense that utility is not the ultimate determinant of whether a particular belief is worth having... )

---------- Post added January-21st-2011 at 11:43 AM ----------

But based on the model you seem to be articulating, the logic and belief are interrelated. If you have a choice to believe, then you have the choice to logically consider the evidence differently (for example, by not using ONLY methods that would prevent you from determining that there is a god), which then means you'd come to a different logical decision about what to believe.

By practicing believing in god, you actually alter your logical conclusion (and of course vice versa), by making a decisions not to believe in god, you actually alter your logical conclusion.

Makes sense! I did a rather poor job wording that quote, and I think that I've been generally too rash in trying to separate logic and reason from belief systems. One can employ logic and reason while having a variety of belief systems, or no belief systems at all, as well as to arrive to a belief system, decide to reject a belief system, etc.

[gbear]

Possible odd question: If one believe in Super Symetry stringtheory, is it possible we happen to exist in one dimension where everything has happened just so in order to allow for our development? In other dimentions, maybe one of our ancestor races became dominant. Maybe everyone there is homo erectus rather than homosapiens? Heck, maybe intelligent thoughts never exist in those realities (shut your trap about this one).

I still keep coming back to maybe God is all of the realities. People for millenia have claimed a god is all knowing, in everything and a part of everything...maybe they were more right than they knew. Maybe we are but one reality and in the one great perfect one, people don't suffer and the reach Nirvana. How crazy would it be if the belief in reincarnation was correct and we simply reincarnate to another version of our life till we get it right?

[PeterMP]

Possible odd question: If one believe in Super Symetry stringtheory, is it possible we happen to exist in one dimension where everything has happened just so in order to allow for our development? In other dimentions, maybe one of our ancestor races became dominant. Maybe everyone there is homo erectus rather than homosapiens? Heck, maybe intelligent thoughts never exist in those realities (shut your trap about this one).

I still keep coming back to maybe God is all of the realities. People for millenia have claimed a god is all knowing, in everything and a part of everything...maybe they were more right than they knew. Maybe we are but one reality and in the one great perfect one, people don't suffer and the reach Nirvana. How crazy would it be if the belief in reincarnation was correct and we simply reincarnate to another version of our life till we get it right?

1. One of the issues with many of these (there are several closely related one) theories is that they say many different things are possible.

2. There still has to be a mechanism by which these were created. Assuming we ever gather enough evidence to say 'Yes, this theory is correct and then in that context the big bang and this universe (in terms of fine tuning) makes sense because of X, Y, and Z', essentially giving you an explanation for the creation of this universe.

You just end up asking yourself, what caused the things (numbers, constants, etc) in that theory to be true.

[MartinC]

How crazy would it be if the belief in reincarnation was correct and we simply reincarnate to another version of our life till we get it right?

Thats a scary thought. I could be stuck in this life for ever based on my current progress :beatdeadhorse:

[mcsluggo]

I understand that. It's just that I also have an understanding of what it means to be "loving and caring", and I have a hard time reconciling that understanding with utter despicable horrors that God allows or fails to prevent. My point is that a belief in a loving and caring God is a matter of Faith.

Yes in a way the teenager faces that same question, whether to have faith and view his seemingly cruel parents as loving and caring. I think that example would be more appropriate if that teenager's parents were pouring molten led down his throat for no apparent reason.

That logic breaks down, and becomes circular if you truly believe two things:

1) that God has put us here to grow and become more "worthy" (for lack of a better word, although it doesn't quite fit) to join "him" as a relative peer in the afterworld

2) and also this is really the MAJOR purpose of our existence here, and that what happens here pales in comparison to what happens afterwards (which as a side component means that "His" ability to heal the deep wounds we feel here is absolute)

in that case it makes perfect sense to set up a world with both great promise to exploit, and also with speedbumps and hurtles to overcome. If you are a father you know that it is MUCH easier to intervene when you see your 5-year old come face to face with a bully as you are reading your paper on the other side of the playground.. however as a father you ALSO know that learning how to effectively deal with bullies on their own is crucial to your child's happiness and development in the future... What do you do? its tough!! and also dependent upon the specifics of the situation. Furthermore... these "life's lessons" get MUCH more treacherous when your children become teenagers. If you don't intervene with a 5 year old, he/she might end up with a skinned knee and hurt feelings. If you don't intervene strenously enough with your 17 year old they might end up a parent before they can handle it or addicted to heroin. the pitfalls are scarier, but the lifeskills they need to learn are no less crucial.

how much harder is it to grow a simple person into "godliness" ?

furthermore, I think that if we beleive in a God, then we also believe that "his" ability to pick up the pieces and heal wounds that have been accrued through these life lessons is quite a bit more complete than a fathers.

Anyway, you can have variations on exactly how you believe or disbelieve this basic heavenly stuff... but I think your specific approach leads to circular logic. I don't believe that a god exists (who is trying to grow us, and has infininte ability to heal our wounds, and who understands things on a different level than I am capable of) because "he" allows things to happen that I personally would not allow to happen, based on my understanding of the here-now. That basically pre-supposes the lack of God's "dimension" (once again, for lack of a better term-- the fact that God exists at a different level...which really is the very definition of God) to prove the lack of God.