There is no limiting of the scope of reality in these hypotheticals, there seems to be a lack of imagination on your part. For this exercise imagine that you know EVERYTHING about the universe. You know that there is a god that exists and is entirely impossible to detect by direct or indirect means. (Let's leave aside the issue of how that knowledge would exist or be obtained and what it even means to exist and not affect anything). This god did something that initiated the creation of the universe. Compare this to the same universe without a god at all. Everything in it is the same. Nothing is distinguishable from the first example. The universe began and everything proceeded in the exact same way as in universe 1. Every atom interacted with every other atom in exactly the same way even though there was never the same initial cause. How would a person in universe 1 tell it apart from this universe? If the answer is that they couldn't then you have a god that is as useful? real? existent? ... anything... as a non-existent god. It can be a silly example but it's useful in pointing out the absurdity of a retreating god. Eventually a retreating god is as good at explaining things as a non-existent one. A retreating god does not affect people's emotions - although the idea of a god may. A retreating god does not make you feel good or motivate you to build a community, but the idea of a god might. Of course the idea of a god and the existence of one are very different things. A universe with no god can still contain religion or the idea of gods. This place could even be identical to a universe with a non-detectable god but indistinguishable from it.
I get all that and I follow you and Benz right up to the point where you state that since the universe without a God is indistinguishable from the one with a God, then the logical next step is to consider said hypothetical God non-existent. You could apply the same logic to the existence of intelligent life outside of our solar system. With our current level of technology, a universe devoid of intelligent life is identical in terms of our perception of said universe to one filled with intelligent life. Does this mean we should consider extra-solar intelligent life as non-existent?
Oh come on, I just said "the god in that example is indistinguishable from a god that does not exist." Seriously. I did not say he doesn't actually exist. I stated he exists in my silly thought experiment example. Like I said, it's a silly example, but it's not about proving non-existence. See above. Let's play almost the same thought experiment. Let's say a race of aliens exists that could communicate with us hypothetically. We have no means yet of detecting them. Now let's go to universe 2 and make everything exactly the same except they don't exist. Now let's destroy both universes before the aliens in universe 1 become detectable. How do you distinguish the two? (We can pretend that even we as outside observers cannot detect them before the point at which this observation ends if that helps). Again, the idea of aliens can exist in both and we can keep looking, but neither universe ended up different.
Thanks Ombak for your posts, I'd rep you if I could (I really need to use that rep-button more often). But I want to clarify one or two things. 1) The reason why a universe in which god's existence and nonexistence are indistinguishable warrants disbelief in god in Occam's razor. I also went over this at great lengths with ASF in our discussion about reason. Let me give you the short version again: We know that A sufficiently accounts for X. Now the proponent of such a god would say that A+B accounts for X where B is undetectable to us. We can't disprove it because B is defined to be undetectable, but we don't need B and even more importantly, B is highly variable. ANY non detectable entity could be B. Therefore any such claim is almost inevitably false and therefore warrants disbelief. 2) We have to differentiate between things that are in no causal relation with us in practice (because of our natural limitations, like unicorns on the recently discovered planet Kepler-22b) and those that are in no causal relation with us in principle, so even if we knew everything about the universe, every particle in every corner, even then we couldn't possibly detect it (like the "hidden" god). Now both cases warrant disbelief, because their assertion is by definition pure speculation and as such almost inevitably false. But I would go even further and say that the god who doesn't interfere at all, not in the slightest way and who is therefore undetectable in principle doesn't exist. Now this is somewhat of a semantic argument, but I think it's still important, because there is no meaningful definition of "existence" that would cover such a god. Everything that exists must have some sort of consistent property (e.g. mass), but any such property would make it detectable, at least in theory.
To me you start to run up against the limitations that people need to think in terms of things being absolute. Something exists or not, in a certain state, and at a certain point. Yet the universe is a relative place with uncertainty. It may be that the question cannot be answered until such time as the event is observed e.g. Is that cat alive or dead? Are the aliens over an event horizon that we can never see past? Maybe they exist in some outcomes/universes/dimensions and not in others. Our searches have always been bounded by the 3 spatial dimensions. But I've often wondered if that is not the right place to 'look'
That's a good point. I think this boils down to the fact that absolute truth is unobtainable. And that's also why these rather abstract arguments often turn into semantic arguments, because we can only perceive practical truth but we want to talk about absolute truth...yet we don't even know whether this notion of absolute truth makes even sense at all. The thing is that "truth" and "falsehood" don't even exist in nature. Nature simply is. Truth and falsehood are human categories, they only enter the picture once we try to create a model of the world we live in (which we do constantly).
For AB's benefit, YouTube just recommended this video to me which happens to deal with the "lack of belief" thingy: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNDZb0KtJDk"]Lack of belief in gods - YouTube[/ame]
The guy is pretty good. The next video I watched happened to deal with the god concept issue I talked to BG about: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wV_REEdvxo"]Putting faith in its place - YouTube[/ame]
Actually, the only thing any of us can be moderately certain of existing is our own consciousness. You choose to believe everyday that your family are real people and not just creations of your mind. Yes, I did decide to sprinkle a little solipsism in this stew and see what happens.
Positivism takes David Hume and kicks him out to the curb where he belongs. Positivists believe your senses are relaying you accurate information of the world.
Since we've had David Deutsch in this thread already, let's see what he gas to say about solipsism. From Wikipedia: An objection, raised by David Deutsch (among others), is that since the solipsist has no control over the "universe" she is creating for herself, there must be some part of her mind, of which she is not conscious, that is doing the creating. If the solipsist makes her unconscious mind the object of scientific study (e.g. by conducting experiments), she will find that it behaves with the same complexity as the universe described by a realist. Thus what realism calls "the universe", solipsism calls "one's unconscious mind." Understood this way, the distinction between realism and solipsism collapses and amounts to different ways of describing the same thing: a massively complex process that causes all of the solipsist's experiences, but is not identical to the solipsist's conscious mind. However despite this the solipsist could still maintain that, unlike Deutsch's views, that which causes his experiences are still a part of his mind. Presumably having made the case that the solipsist scientist is actually a realist scientist, Deutsch next argues in favor of the more common understanding of reality. He applies Occam's Razor, and suggests that it prefers the standard external 'reality' over something like a brain in a vat. This is because the standard 'reality' fits all the data available to the scientist, rendering superfluous the other more complicated possibilities. Now I think that while this is a fascinating approach to solipsism, Deutsch has already wasted too much time and effort on it. Solipsism is by definition a useless concept. If it's true, nothing would matter anyway, so we might as well "waste" our time with science. Plus, I think there are reasons to assume it to be false...and you guessed it, that can also be found in the discussion on reason I've had with ASF
Many people believe in 'One Truth' Almost all of them are fortunate enough that the 'One Truth' (of all the claimants) just happens to be the one prevalent in their family and community. How very fortunate, and remarkable unlikely, that is.
Well to go wildly off topic - that is the essence of Inception. You choose to believe everyday that you are the same person as yesterday.
Yeah, they do start by making that particular assumption. So do most of us, instinctively. I bet even Hume did, when he wasn't writing.
Atheist Summer Camp is Heaven on Earth for Non-Believers http://news.yahoo.com/atheist-summe...believers-190240069--abc-news-topstories.html
...and virtually all seem to believe that even if that had been born into a family of a different religion, they'd have realised their current religion was correct and converted. edit: just noticed how old this post was
I do not believe in the existence of deities and I'd go as far to state they also do not exist. I also don't see any reason to believe in the afterlife, though I keep that one open as a possibility. But it's likely my desire and also an irrational fear of death that kicks in. So I've no idea if I should consider myself an atheist, I'm aware there's different definitions and 'types'.. and no, it's not agnostic atheism (or reverse).
Why Atheists are starting their own global church http://news.yahoo.com/why-atheists-...sts-starting-own-global-church-130500790.html I don't know if this will work, but I think it's a good idea. I think religion is an important part of human life, and has been ever since the dawn of civilization. As far as I'm concerned, there is no reason why those who are inclined not to believe in a god should be deprived of some of the other positive aspects of religion. And if they start proselytizing, well, I can always deal with them the same way I deal with other proselytizers.
Community is a good idea, not religion Join the PTA - get on the board of a youth sports club. Lots of other ways to get that sense of communal feeling without adopting the trappings of religion.
I suppose some atheists want to get away from any idea of church, period. But is it possible that there are many others who miss church, communion with people who think along the same lines, liturgy, moral teachings, age appropriate ethic classes for youth and children, and so on, even though intellectually they reject the idea of a god? Some people may even welcome the positive reinforcement of their ideas that such places provide, even more so considering that atheism is still a minority belief (or lack of belief) in most western countries. Maybe that's what these people are going after.
I once felt like signing up with Christian Mingle just to troll. Actually, I don't care if other people seek "community" with their local church. I just don't like it when they try to justify a law that applies to everyone because of Jesus.