Friday 7 September 2007
Signs from nature
Jonathan, you've been patient, so I'm responding to your question about what I consider the best physical evidence that encourages me to believe in God. It's funny, I feel a weariness even before beginning, anticipating Billy's attack: 'that's not evidence!' So I have to address this issue first, if briefly: the nature and role of 'physical evidence' in belief. Jonathan, I don't know what you think, but I know Billy that your/Dawkins' view and understanding of evidence is a particular one, different from mine, a Christian view, or indeed I'd say a range of other non-scientific reductionist ones. To try and articulate briefly, when a person - not just me - considers nature to any depth or extent, the qualities of order, complexity and beauty produce a sense of awe and wonder which direct the mind and imagination to ponder the ultimate source of such qualities. For me the very fact the human mind is capable of so fully appreciating the awesome beauty of nature is itself compelling. What purpose does that serve in a blind mechanical chance system? There's no point cataloguing all the marvels of nature, but I suppose ones that particularly impact my imagination are complexity at the minute level, eg in cells, the seasons, especially the co-ordination of the movements of the heavenly bodies with the impact of the beauty of their changing observable effects on the human mind; and the apparent 'fine-tuning' of the universe to enable the kind of planet and life we see on earth. But, to try and at least dampen the force of B's anticipated attack, I'd make no simple 'therefore God' deduction; these things merely impact the mind in a way making it more amenable to the possibilty of God.
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13 comments:
Points to tackle, from yesterday's comments:
Jigsaw nature of evidence. McGrath quote. Faith. Explanatory power.
J you seem so far to be curious, open-minded. Resurrection evidence - McDowell's book outlines it, other books sourced there do in more detail.
B, I'm not pulling my punches today. You seem frankly locked into a particular narrow 'evidence' mindset and just seem out to attack. If you were really open-minded I'd expect a lot more interest and questions and desire to check it out from issues being raised. I don't think you've explored as much as you make out; strikes me you quickly became a Dawkins disciple and embraced that mindset from which you refuse to budge. I'm with you guys all the way that religion doesn't deserve respect if it can't defend itself. But I'm amazed B by how little esteem you evidently hold the thought and learning of a range of people as or more qualified to comment than yourself. If I'm serious about engaging with a belief I don't share, I'd want to engage with the best material out there - have you, in detail and depth? eg John Polkinghorne (former Astronomer Royal and a Christian); A. McGrath - tell me what you think of them. McDowell presents quotation from a range of learned sources - have you read and engaged with them? Your disdain for Lord Darling - have you read what he or others have written about the Resurrection? (a whole topic in itself) If you don't want to go and read it up thoroughly yourself, then I'll try and relay some - but it'll be a drip feed of what I come across, because I can't blog all day. Have you really checked out all the evidence fairly, starting with the Resurrection section in McDowell? It's out there in these writings! If you really want to know, why waste your time scoring a debate point by continually just asking me 'Where's the evidence?'
- testable, tangible evidence - there is, I've never said there isn't - just not necessarily to your rigidly narrow Dawkinsy specifications.
- your comment about my 'argument from authority' re Darling - again, over-reaching what I said; I just said it impressed, made an impression on me.
PS I still love ya by the way.
Hi Bruce, you are right, that is not evidence. You are starting with an assumption that you cant explain complexity other than by god (even though you say you are not necessarily doing so)That is a god of the gaps fallacy. You have to justify why you exclude the natural explanation. I have to be brief just now, but here is a comment I sosted yesterday on the RD link I provided recently. It adresses the "why" we can appreciate issue.
But have you never asked yourself - given your standpoint (I presume) that evolution by natural selection is the reason why living things have the properties they do – why:
(a) human beings can see the stars at all;
Well you try competing in this world wearing a blindfold for a day and see how far you get
(b) we have a consciousness to know that we are seeing the stars;
Intelligence allows communication. communication allows cooperation or planning things, such as setting traps for food, finding food, out witting predators/competitors etc
(c) we are endowed with the intellectual and physical capabilities sufficient for us, by the development and application of technology, to observe that in fact there are apparently enormous numbers of stars out there;
See above. You cant deny that technology - even as simple as making clothes from animal skins allows us to exploit our enviroment and exploit new ones
(d) despite our obvious inability to mentally grasp those numbers in any physical (unary) sense, we have minds that enable us to easily contemplate and work mathematically with such huge numbers, including the simple but potent mechanism of based number representation (e.g. decimal);
See above
(e) we can create poetic language to describe the universe and invoke emotion in others by doing so, even by reference to such seemingly remote and intangible objects as stars;
Girls like that stuff, probably because it implies intelligence and good social skills, indicating a good provider
(f) and all that despite the fact that, apart from casting tiny amounts of light on us at night, the stars do not interact with us in any meaningful way, at the level of our day-to-day lives?
They do intreract; calendars and navigation for example, but why ponder them? Most likely a by product of all the advantages above. Have you considered why hallucinogenic drugs can alter your brain? If there was a soul, it should be independant of such physical influences.
By the way, nature is not beautiful as such. It is violent and bloody. Beautiful things like spoders webs are there to kill One of the most beatiful creatures in the sea - the mantis shrimp is a psychopathic little killer that can shatter it's prey by hitting it with the force of a .22 bullet. Then we have disease causing organisms. Do you think god created malaria, ebola and HIV?
More later, but if you cant wait, I strongly suggest watching this Ken Millar video. It shows life to be reducibly complex - no need for a creator (although he is a christian himself). It also deals with some of the topice that creationist deciever Ken Ham was talking about last night - like Darwin = Satan and the secular world has no morals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVRsWAjvQSg
Billy
All I can say just now, Billy, is, that was quick. Can't fault you for speed.
You seem frankly locked into a particular narrow 'evidence' mindset and just seem out to attack.
And can you give a reason to believe anything without evidence? Also, add argumentum ad hominen to your list of logical fallacies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
If you were really open-minded I'd expect a lot more interest and questions and desire to check it out from issues being raised.
Ad hominem again – for those not bothering to read the link above, that is attacking the person and not his arguments. I have asked you questions, I have asked you for evidence, I have asked you to provide evidence that consciousness is more than physically based – amongst other things – please pay attention.
I don't think you've explored as much as you make out; strikes me you quickly became a Dawkins disciple and embraced that mindset from which you refuse to budge.
Ad hominem again and Im going to create a new fallacy just for you: reduction ad Dawkinsium (a bit like reduction ad Hitlerum. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum If I was being cynical, I would suggest that you are equating me with someone people of faith generally hold to be dogmatic and fundamentalistic in his out look. Thereby attacking me and not the arguments (by the way, he is neither – read the god delusion properly – in fact, read it). I would like to turn that first allegation around (can you back it up by the way?). To what extent have you actually considered the alternative opinion? And, I’m not referring to the occasional doubt here. How seriously have you investigated the validity of the bible? The only way to find out if I have read as much as I claim is to present your case. Then I present my view on it, you counter my claim, I counter yours and so on. That’s how we investigate issues. Only one of us can be right, so please bear that in mind and don’t complain when I disagree with some thing. As you will and have found out, I back up my claims. It would be more productive if you could do the same, and not resort to Ad Homs. This is common with Christians. It makes me suspect that they have not thought things through properly, but you have the opportunity here to show otherwise.
Don’t call me a Dawkins Disciple. That’s just insulting. It implies I just accept authority and don’t think. My atheism has very little to do with him – your memory fails you here. I left your church 4 years before “the god delusion” came out. I also disagree with him on some things: a luxury denied to religious disciples; although you some how manage to worm you way out of taking the command to stone homosexuals literally (we some of you anyway). Nice to see you agree with good secular principles on this one though. But I digress.
I'm with you guys all the way that religion doesn't deserve respect if it can't defend itself. But I'm amazed B by how little esteem you evidently hold the thought and learning of a range of people as or more qualified to comment than yourself.
Bruce, please pay attention to my posts. Again you commit the appeal to authority fallacy. What I am saying is question everything yourself. So-called experts can be wrong; especially ones with clear agendas. I asked you before why you are not a Muslim, there are plenty of Islamic scholars out there far better able to state a claim for Islam than you. Hopefully we both agree that is not an argument, just like your appeal to authority is not a defense of your position. There are also plenty of Atheist scholars out there. What do you propose we do? Have a show of hands and the most popular option wins? Hopefully you agree that is no way to seek the truth, so why do you do it again after already having the error of this approach pointed out. Provide evidence, explain why they think that. You never know, you may actually provide the argument that changes my mind. It seems though you don’t want to consider that possibility, you just make accusations about my desire to explore the truth. I was hoping for better from you.
If I'm serious about engaging with a belief I don't share, I'd want to engage with the best material out there - have you, in detail and depth? eg John Polkinghorne (former Astronomer Royal and a Christian)
Here we go again, no evidence and appeal to authority. Yes, I think I have read some stuff by him.
; A. McGrath - tell me what you think of them..
Aready have, and in person too. However, I’m discussing things with you, and that is why you did personally invite me on to your blog. Have you now changed focus and not told me/
McDowell presents quotation from a range of learned sources - have you read and engaged with them?
Engaged with McDowell? Quotations mean noting, haven’t you realised that yet. Here are two quotes: “god exists” and “god doesn’t exist”, gosh, how do I know which one to believe? The answer of course is neither, I go out and find out for myself through critical evaluation of the arguments for and against each view.
Your disdain for Lord Darling - have you read what he or others have written about the Resurrection?
Disdain? Explain how criticising an appeal to authority constitutes disdain.
(a whole topic in itself) If you don't want to go and read it up thoroughly yourself, then I'll try and relay some - but it'll be a drip feed of what I come across, because I can't blog all day. Have you really checked out all the evidence fairly, starting with the Resurrection section in McDowell? It's out there in these writings! If you really want to know, why waste your time scoring a debate point by continually just asking me 'Where's the evidence?'
Probably better than you have, both for and against. That’s the point of this kind of discussion – well for me at least, to provoke thought in each other. Again, another Ad Hom from you
- testable, tangible evidence - there is, I've never said there isn't - just not necessarily to your rigidly narrow Dawkinsy specifications.
Ad hom! Do you think trusting your feelings constitutes evidence?
- your comment about my 'argument from authority' re Darling - again, over-reaching what I said; I just said it impressed, made an impression on me.
Really, why then did you feel the need to point out his position, or even mention him specifically. I know people believe in the resurrection. Why did you s[ecifically mention him to me? Was it because he is highly ranking in the legal system, so he presumably knows about what makes good evidence in legal cases, and that he says the resurrection is a sound case? That sounds like an appeal to authority to me.
PS I still love ya by the way.
Flattered as I am, there is this young lady I like :-)
Billy
PS, it's not about scoring debate points, its about challenging the way you think by pointing out the errors. After all, I'm not here to try and make a good impression, but to challenge
Billy
I must meet this Ad Hom. Brother of Ken? Oh boy. I feel like curling up with a good novel or something. Night night.
"For me the very fact the human mind is capable of so fully appreciating the awesome beauty of nature is itself compelling. What purpose does that serve in a blind mechanical chance system?"
I am an accountant, so my knowledge of biology is nothing to brag about (certainly nowhere near Billy's level). To start with a minor point- evolution is NOT a system of chance. Sure, chance may play a role, in the "this gene mutated, that flash flood just washed away that animal's competitors" sort of way, but that's not what evolution is about. I suppose evolution might be described as "survival of the most adequate". It selects for, not just the best, but also those which are just about good enough to survive. But I'm getting side-tracked.
What you seem to be getting at is the fact that we can appreciate the beauty of nature increases the likelihood that God made us able to appreciate it. As you said, it makes you more "amenable" to the possibility.
But there are other explanations. The observation of "beauty" is merely observation of the environment. All animals need to do that. Those that aren't good at it tend to get eaten. So obviously those that are better at observing will have brains that are better at it. As time goes on, they get better and better at it until they start to observe in a new way. This is tied in with intelligence. The smarter we got, so the theory goes, the easier it was to survive, and the more time we had to look around us and think about stuff. Although we can never know for sure, it's highly unlikely that any other creature on the planet has a grasp of "beauty". They're just not smart enough.
I could probably phrase it better, but you get the idea. No God required.
"and the apparent 'fine-tuning' of the universe to enable the kind of planet and life we see on earth".
Once again, Bruce, the way you phrase your arguments is highly telling. This is a variation of the Anthropic Principle. But what you have done is get it backwards.
The Universe came first, obviously. We are creatures of the Universe, bound and constrained by its laws, from gravity to entropy. How could we have arisen if we were not? The point is that it is not the Universe tuned to us, but WE that are tuned to the UNIVERSE.
But perhaps you are thinking, "what are the chances that the Universe was at just the right state that we could exist?" Well, there are explanations for this, as well. One is that our Universe is only one of a possibly infinite number. Within that infinity, there would be a large number (also infinite!) of Universes with different physical laws. We don't know that life cannot arise under different physical conditions such as those that another Universe might exhibit.
I realise that this is an extremely long-winded comment! But my point is that even though things appear a certain way, they aren't necessarily so. We have evolved in a certain way, basically to survive on savannah plains, and we haven't had enough time since becoming intelligent to get over that. Therefore the way we see things is invariably skewed by the way we are WIRED to see things. The trick is to look past that, to go deeper.
This is why myself and Billy are very keen on the evidence. Because although our instincts and impressions are good, they are very often wrong.
Lecture over. The point of my essay was that God is not needed to explain what we see around us. I observe, also, that the arguments you made did not speak towards the idea of God as an interventionist.
PS- my question about what Darling considered to be strong evidence for the Resurrection still stands.
PPS- Billy asked you why you think that consciousness is more than physically based. This would be an excellent topic to open up. I'm also curious to hear why you think that.
Jonathan.
Hi Bruce
may I suggest some light reading
Matthew 7:6.
Jimmy,
Why when the religious are challenged, they pretend they have something special and that we cant possibly understand. Do you not have any evidence then?
Perhaps you could try and reconcile Matt 7:6 with 1 peter 3:15 "But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect"
On another thread you said beautiful women were a wonder of god's creation. What do you consider attractivenessly challenged women to be?
Just to elaborate on some of Jonathan's points, Chimps show self awareness and can solve problems - as can squirrels and octopus. I dont think we can assume we are the only species with strongly developed cognitive abilities - even elephants can paint http://www.elephantartgallery.com/paintings/
The anthropic principle is often misused and rests on the assumption that life as we know it is the only possibility. This is a rather anthropocentric view of things. Life xists on this planet at depths, temperatures, radiation levels and oxygen pressures that would kill us, so why should we think we are special. The vast majority of the universe is hostile to us, that doesn't sound well designed to me. Even our planet is hostile to life - volcanoes, earth quakes, drought, ice caps etc, and every now and then, rocks smash into us from space - the universe is essentially human unfriendly. Nt exactly the way to go about things if you want your handiwork to be recognised. Nor is leaving it some 9 billion for life to develop here - then there are those billions of billions of other worlds out there. Worlds we are essentially ignorant about. To claim the universe is designed for us is a poor claim at best. since they live on us (well not me I hasten to add), are we designed solely for the existence of pubic lice. That's what the universe would look like to an "intelligent" Papillon d'amour (that's crabs by the way)
PS. In case you didn't work it out, the last one was me
Billy
Cheers for the responses guys. Afraid I've given myself no time to reply today. I realise part of my frustration yesterday stemmed from the different expectations we have of this kind of discussion. No offence was meant. Back on Monday. Have a good weekend.
Hi Billy
you should know it's only possible to be ugly on the inside.
Jimmy,
Certainly, one of the most physically beautiful people I have met is truely hideously "ugly" on the inside, but would you choose to date a physically ugly woman?
I was just curious, as I find the argument from beauty here (which this impinges on) somewhat inconsistent. If people claim god is responsible for beauty, then he is also responsible for congenital deformity and disease too (Psalm 139:13).
Take care
Billy
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