Yes. Not about my arrogance blinding me, I hope, but about speaking according to what seems logical to my own mind, and about being a Deist. An agnostic Deist, to be more precise.
Do you believe there is a correlation between how your life has gone and what you choose to believe?.. for example, if you feel you have had good things in your life...could you believe it possible to look and imagine the glory and improbability of your situation and imagine something bigger?........compared to somebody who has known nothing but misery and pain, and has had no stories to explain their situations.
It appears to me that you both changed the definitions and misunderstood my examples. As for the definitions, you're free to use whatever definition you like, but we need to be on the same page so that we can understand each other. That's why I started out this little debate by providing definitions that I think were pretty straight forward. And using that definition, we can have something locally, but when we have negative something elsewhere, the whole still amounts to nothing. And that's where your grain of sand analogy fails, as it's not about the local something being insignificant compared to the vast nothingness. That would indeed be fallacious. The problem with these kinds of examples is that in the world we experience, there are no negative things, that's why I talked about common sense and its limitations and that's also why I went for a mathematical analogy because there we're all used to dealing with negatives. But we can still visualize it if that's what you're after. So instead of a grain of sand, think of a bathtub that is half filled. This volume of water represents zero energy. The example obviously isn't perfect as something (water) is used to represent nothing, but as I said, the world we have evolved to live in doesn't have negatives, so that's why we have to use this as an approximation. Actually our world does have negatives, it's just that we don't recognize them as such. Matter is in effect negative energy. It's just that in our frame of reference, it doesn't have any consequences. Over long periods of time (hundreds of billions of years) it will though and we can see an analogue in this example. So back to the bathtub. Again, the water in the half filled tub represents zero energy. In your imagination, you can mark that waterline on the bathtub. Now you play Moses and part the waters. Say you put a sealing screen in the middle and you put all the water in the sealed off left half of the tub. So in the left half there's lots of energy represented by the high water line, way above our zero energy line. In the right half of the tub, there's negative energy though as there's no water to come even close to the zero line. Overall, you still have zero energy as the positive energy in the one half accounts for the negative energy in the other. Then you remove the screen and let the water splash back into the entire tub. You'll get local waves and valleys. Let's take a snapshot of one area of the water surface representing our place in space and time. If we analyze it, we see places with positive and places with negative energy next to one another. But we don't recognize them as such as they are frozen in time, to us there now just hills and valleys. Without looking at the big picture, we can't see that the hills perfectly account for all the valleys and that taken all together, they amount to zero. We don't even see that valleys are the negative equivalent to hills, to us they're all part of the same surface. But when we zoom out, we can see that overall, the amount of water still represents zero energy and that is always has. So the argument is NOT that our little wave is insignificant in relation to the big tub, it's that for every little wave there's a corresponding valley so that overall we always have precisely zero. And in the long run, the water will even out and be still and no local energy, positive or negative, will be left. I am open to all kinds of possibilities but I reject any such conclusions precisely because of the limitations you described. If we can't know anything, we must guess everything, but guessing leads to falsehood with a probability correlating to the possibilities. Infinite possibilities as in this case therefore lead to inevitable falsehood. Therefore the only rational position is to reject all such guesses. Ultimately all evidence and all reason are based on empiricism of some form. Life itself is a constant gathering of empirical data. However, reasons don't have to have a direct empirical analog, but direct empirical knowledge is the ultimate reason. There were good reasons to subscribe to atomism even in ancient Greece, but without direct empirical evidence, there was room for debate. Aristotle for example rejected atomism and subscribed to something called hylomorphism. Again he did so for good reasons. But once direct empirical evidence has arrived, the debate was over. BTW, it's fascinating how natural philosophy has shaped not only our interpretation of the natural world, but also philosophy in general and things like ethics. Christianity and subsequently our Western world is deeply ingrained with Platonism/Aristotelianism as it has adopted that kind of natural philosophy which is the basis for all other teachings. Compare that to the atomist counterpart of Epicureanism and what other teachings that implied. As I said, it's really fascinating. Right now I'm reading a book that in part deals with this topic called "The Swerve" by Stephen Greenblatt. I really recommend it. It also deals with the Renaissance world in general and Italy and the Vatican in particular. http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/09/19/140533195/lucretius-man-of-modern-mystery The truth of an idea is not in any way based on the usefulness of the idea. It might be very useful to believe that a monster will eat you if you don't do your homework, that doesn't make it true. When we talk about matters of truth, our feelings don't matter, only our reasons do. You are however correct that future vindications don't matter to us either, only the reasons and the evidence that are accessible to us today. And today we have no reason and no basis for making any supernatural assumptions whatsoever.
Einstein was likely a deist. I think this is a good starting point for debates about religion, since it seems self-evident to me that something created this universe. And what is wrong with calling that force - God. If we can call whatever created this Universe, God then we can start asking questions like: "Did God really abandon it, or does he in some subtle way exert some influence over it". What about consciousness, and self awareness. Where does that come from? Are we to believe that just like the Universe popping out of nothingness, that our self-awareness does also? Like it is some random mistake? If we have consciousness are we really the highest form of it? Couldn't what ever created the universe have it also? When it comes to questions like this I don't have any answers, only questions. And when I meet someone that does have all the answers I become suspicious of them. How can anyone taking strong views on this debate be so sure?
Actually, I've only read a little bit of this thread and found this after posting my last comment. This is my perspective also, an agnostic deist.
That question is already loaded to the max. First of all, in the post you quoted, I addressed the issue of those "rules". Here's what I posted: Nature simply IS. The laws of nature on the other hand are an abstraction, they're a model of reality and they're dependent on a human mind. The laws of nature are a way for us to visualize what's going on, but they don't exist outside of our minds. All this really tells us is that "nothingness" is inherently unstable. And why shouldn't it be? Secondly, very simple such rules can lead to extraordinary complex superstructures that then have their own rules. Look at the "Game of Life" for example. Obviously the Game of Life is intelligently designed, but that's just incidental. The point was to show how a simple system can lead to complex results. It doesn't need to be designed to do that. As I also said in the post you quoted, all that is necessary to "author this structure that creates as small as electrons and as large as galaxies" is nothingness, so I really wonder how you can say such a thing in reply to my post and completely ignore what I said. You're of course free to challenge me, but you're not even doing that, you're pretending I never addressed these issues. Thirdly, why do you suppose that there needs to be a "creator"? That's the most blunt fallacy of them all. That's the same "design implies a designer" argument creationists use. But we KNOW it to be false. There's lots of design that does NOT require a designer. All you do is to move that same argument up on a higher plane. But you have absolutely no justification for making such a move, for plugging a "who" in the question. That already presupposed that there is somebody, which is what you set out to make a case for. Sure, we could do that, but that would render the term "god" completely meaningless. Also, there are already perfectly good words describing this, like "cause" or "origin" (though even they're not particularly accurate as I'll explain further down). So why put the word "god" in there? To make it easer for religious people to hide behind it? To have an intentional ambiguity in order to not have to defend your belief? How does it serve any purpose to have one word representing an almighty, all powerful, intelligent, eternal, omnibenevolent supernatural being to some people and absolutely empty space to others? Actually, no, it's not even that. Not in the sense you're talking about anyway. For example, when you go down to quantum mechanics, cause and effect cease to exist. And it's a quantum event that some scientists hypothesize is behind the existence of what we call "the universe". That means that our universe is not caused and therefore also not created in any traditional way. All that is needed is absolutely empty space where non-caused quantum events do the rest. Now I hear you say: "Well, well, but even empty space is space and therefore something." But that would of course be false. First of all, I challenge you to come up with a meaningful definition of "something" that contains empty space. Secondly, if you think of space as a thing, you're still stuck in the Newtonian model of the world where space is absolute. But we now know for more than 100 years that space is not absolute but relational. Space only exists as a relation between physical objects. So empty space really isn't space at all as there's nothing to relate to.
I think it's a very logical position, and it doesn't contradict any empirical evidence. I am a big believer in science and I tend to accept the conclusions of science about natural philosophy, while understanding that new evidence might change those conclusions. I tend to agree with most of the conclusions brought up here by posters like benztown when it comes to natural philosophy matters. Most of what he posts I don't even dispute. But on the other hand, I think there is a lot more that we can speculate about and use in our life to grow as human beings (as self-aware sentient beings that somehow have a self-defined existence in an ethereal way). I just don't think we should point at sensory based empirical data the same way a religious fundamentalist might point at a Bible or Koran and say "if it's not here, I reject it". I mean, you can do it for yourself if it works for you, I'm not going to tell you it's wrong, but don't tell me it's the only logical way to go.
He specifically referred to himself in a letter as an agnostic. That much is fact. I also would like to add a conjecture--that he had a falsely dichotomized view of the difference between agnosticism and atheism. I consider myself an agnostic atheist and don't see a conflict: I am quite certain that the human constructs of gods throughout history are all simply stories, making me actively atheistic toward these religions. But I cannot with any real certainty say that no god exists--thereby making me an agnostic. That said, I do passively lack a belief in any such god, just as I lack a belief in an infinite number of things for which there is no evidence--thereby making me an atheist (often called a weak atheist). In my view, this is closer to Einstein's view than deism. You may disagree. As benztown indicated, that would indeed make that word meaningless. It's simply a label. If you are a deist as you claim, then this God is essentially inconsequential to life and the universe at this point anyway, because "his hands are off." If you even begin to think this way, you are now out of the realm of deism and into something else entirely. Which is fine, but it makes your self-labeling inaccurate. I am uncomfortable with determinism, but it may be the best explanation as far as not requiring any sort of special pleading to remain logically consistent with these ideas. I also have no vanity as to whether humanity is the "highest form of consciousness." We have a universe that spans an unimaginable distance. Though "we are a way for the universe to know itself," as Sagan said, we have no realistic reason to think we're the epitome thereof. I can only speak for myself: I am far from sure. For that very reason, I don't want to build any assumptions in. Naturally, we tend to view things with a human spin. Who the hell are we to say what consciousness or self-awareness is or might be? What does "popping out of nothingness" even mean? These words are so tainted with the way we experience our lives--our "common sense"--common sense which has been experimentally shown not to be reflective of quantum reality in any appreciable way whatsoever, that we should be extremely careful about the presumptions we make. In the spirit of keeping these things as simple as possible, I try to avoid the problem of positing something more complex than the universe to be the creator of that universe. Put succinctly, explaining the complex universe using something even more complex is not a solution--if you're going to be truly intellectually honest, then you now have to try to figure out where it came from. And so on and so on. If an infinite regress is intellectually satisfying to you, that's fine, but it's not to me, especially in a universe where relatively simple things order themselves into more complex things naturally. That seems to be a hallmark of this place we're in--so why complicate matters?
But it is the only consistently logical way to go precisely because that bolded part. As soon as you believe in a deity, you are speculating, you are making assumptions about that which you yourself claim one cannot make assumptions about. The only way out of this predicament is to reject belief in any such assumption.
I am not claiming that "one cannot make assumptions". Quite the opposite. I think not only we all make certain assumptions, but the only way we can understand certain matters that we experience is indeed by making assumptions. Of course, in matters that are not supported by empirical sensory evidence we cannot expect others to agree with our own assumptions, because it's not possible when looking at certain matters to use the scientific method of thinking in a way that produces the kind of external evidence that we can all agree on. But to be clear, I am not talking about speculating idly and wildly, nor irrationally making assumptions out of thin air. While I think that certain stipulations that are used to test natural phenomena become irrelevant when talking about metaphysics, I didn't mean by that to say that when speculating about metaphysics we are not to use a logical thought process. When I say I'm speculating about certain internal matters that I deem important, I do follow a logical sequence. I begin with my own experience, then I come up with assumptions based on my experience, then I make predictions based on those assumptions, and finally I try to test them logically. What I cannot do obviously is test them in a tangible manner that produces the type of physical evidence that we can all agree on, due to the nature of the ideas that I'm testing. I mean, we can all have experiences, we can internally form conjectures by speculating, we can then make predictions based on those projections, and we can test them internally within ourselves. But we cannot hope to prove them or disprove it in the way we can do with natural phenomena, because they are not the kind of ideas that produce the type of sensory data that's needed in order to conduct a shared experiment in the physical sensory realm. And as my experiences may differ from yours, any idea that I may internally arrive at by testing my experiences may be meaningless to you. That's why people can never agree about these things. Let me explain by example. Lets take my own existence, my inner self. I speculate about the manner and meaning of my existence, because I am in fact aware of my own existence and I experience it. My experience within myself tells me that at a certain level -call it ethereal or whatever- I do exist. There is something I call "me" that thinks and feels and judges and acts. And then, accepting this, my existence defines my ideas and thoughts. Now you may say "I exist" is an assumption, but it's not a useless idle speculation that you can dismiss as irrational. It's a logical assumption based on real experience that tells me that there's something that exists, feels, thinks, judges, grows stronger over time, and that something is me, my "inner self" that based on my experiences I assume exists. Now lets take a more complex idea, like the power of prayer. If I say to you, "Prayer strengthens my inner self", I am doing two things. First, I am describing what I have discovered to be true based on my own experience. The real fact that when I pray, I find that my inner self becomes stronger. (And I can bring up examples from my life that back this up.) Second, I am logically building on my assumption from the previous paragraph, the idea that "I exist", when I assert that a certain action on my part affects "my inner self" by making it stronger. I can also inwardly test the conjecture that my inner self is stronger following prayer in clear ways that are tangible to me, and by doing so I may be able to logically arrive at the conclusion that my inner self was indeed strengthened by prayer. (And I have). Now, many people who also claim that they have experienced the power of prayer (or meditation) and also claim that it makes their inner self stronger, tend at this point to make a leap of faith and to attribute it to a specific idea of God. (or Jesus, Buddha etc). They take a real thing that is happening in their inner self and by align it to a particular explanation provided by a religious tradition that has addressed such experiences doctrinally. That's were faith comes in. But I don't do that. That is why I call myself an agnostic. On the other hand, I do think that one possible explanation of the power of prayer that (as I've innerly established) gives me strength, is that there could be a connection to something else, a stronger power. I can call that a conjecture. That a force, power, intelligence, energy, whatever you might call it, somehow seem to be in tune with me when I pray. Thus, the fact that my inner self gets stronger leads me to believe that there may be something out there that's causing this phenomena. Now, people can get caught up on whether that "something" is God, and start discussing its attributes. They get caught up on whether this "God" talks to them, and whether this "God" is responsible for the creation of the universe or whether its existence means that they'll somehow live past their physical death. I personally don't see that as significant for me. Much less when it comes to ideas like whether this "something" originates from some selfish beings who rule on Mount Olympus or some selfless being who was crucified on Mount Calvary. That doesn't really matter to me, because speculating in those directions doesn't really enhance or explain in any way my own personal experiences that I'm drawing from. (I'm sure such things matter a lot to others, but I'm not going to speak for others.) What seems to matters to me in practical terms is that I know that through prayer I often find the inner strength that I need, and it seems that by being in touch somehow with something through prayer I find that my spiritual life is enhanced in many ways and I grow as a person, both in terms of my state of mind and also in practical ways that I can translate into what I deem to be better behavior. So, when I place the idea of God in the equation of my way of thinking and of my spiritual experiences -the idea that not only I exist but there is also something bigger than myself that also exists and that it's somehow connected to me- I find that it seems to logically fit into my experience and reality like a piece of a puzzle that has the right shape. And, I've found over the years by trial and error that it fits into the puzzle of my reality much better than the idea of nothing but emptiness that Atheism and minimalism seem to offer. Being a philosopher at heart, I've tried to speculate from an atheist point of view, I've read some well known thinkers, tried to follow their arguments, I've tried to take their assumptions to see where they lead me. And the piece just didn't seem to fit into my puzzle as neatly. So, that's what I mean when I call myself a Deist. But I don't pretend to know. I'm not here to convince anybody of anything because I'm the first to admit that I don't know. Thus, I call myself an agnostic Deist.
Can you be any sort of deist, and believe that prayer works for you or anybody? I mean, do you believe you are praying for inner strength from what you believe to be an unknown creator\something else unknown and greater than what we know...and receiving said inner strength?
It's not that I "believe" that it works. It's more accurate to say that I know from experience that it works. What I don't know is the how or the why. Deism is obviously a supposition that seems to me to be a plausible reason. It could be "the Matrix" for all I know, although it seems to me less plausible.
It could also simply be your brain--the placebo effect is well-documented. But studies on prayer have left the question of its efficacy up in the air, at best. The field has been plagued by pious fraud. The simplest explanation, and one which appears to have the best support at this point, is that the brain is complex, and that positive thinking can have positive effects.
It's really interesting, but up until the very end, I would agree with everything you say, though occasionally I'd possibly mean to say something different with the same words or at least I'd stress different things. Though I certainly don't deny your existence and neither do I deny the reality of your experiences. I do however reject your interpretation of these experiences. I don't see how they're evidence for anything outside of yourself. Prayer, meditation, etc. are all very introspective things. The language you used also goes into that direction, you talk about "strengthening your inner self" and "inwardly testing" your inner strength. All that indicates that whatever is going on is happening inside of you. To make the jump from there to a belief in a higher being is exactly the leap of faith you say you're not making. There's an obvious disconnect in your reasoning. You might not jump to as concrete a god as most others do, but you're doing the same thing. Yet there is no need and no reason to jump to such a conclusion. You're free to do so of course, but then call it as it is: Faith, not reason. It seems to me that you're focusing on the practical value of such beliefs. And I agree with you, there certainly are practical values. Prayer can strengthen people's inner self, rituals can strengthen a community, etc. However, it is not in any way evidence for the reality of these beliefs. If believing in god makes people happy, then that's great for them, and I don't deny that this is what is happening, but it has absolutely no bearing on whether or not that belief is true.
I know from experience that Reading are playing better since I started entering the Madejski stadium from the leftmost turnstile but one in the east stand, and we lose if I walk the wrong side of the north stand chip van. I also know absolutely that it's total nonsense, but still feel compelled not to "tempt fate". It's a problem of coincidences. Once you start believing coincidences are more significant than they really are, you kind of only notice the occasions when things work as you expect, and ignore the times that it doesn't. It can even be said that gamblers have a similar problem with coincidences, in that they really believe they can win back what they've lost through more gambling, as the times they win convinces them they are on a lucky streak, completely ignoring the fact that they lose more than they win. Loads of deeply religious people can point to examples of people who've been told they will die, but after much prayer they actually live. It's seen as proof of prayers being answered. All the people who are told they will die, and are prayed for, who do die, are forgotten.
Wasn't it Carlin who asked the people who claim to "know" that prayer works do a little experiment - for 6 months pray to your regular god of choice, count the number of prayers that "come true" - then pray 6 months to the Empire State Building instead - count the number of prayers that "come true" - your numbers will be very similar.