Spiritual demographics of PowerSwitch

[Catweazle]

The old arguments about there being no evidence for the existence of God therefore God cannot exist don't hold water.

There are millions of people who will swear to you that they have personal experience of God, how many witnesses do you need ?

Personally, based on;

a) never having experienced God and
b) the Born Again Christians I have met have invariably have had some sort of emotional shock or breakdown

I wonder whether "God" is in fact an unexplained feature of our own brains.

Like I said, I could be wrong.

[UndercoverElephant]

If there is no objective evidence to support the existence of a deity or deities, why profess uncertainty about the question?

There is no objective evidence to support the claim that Viking explorers reached Florida. Why profess uncertainty? Because Viking explorers could have reached Florida, and even Viking historians might not ever have known.

[caspian]

The old arguments about there being no evidence for the existence of God therefore God cannot exist don't hold water.

There are millions of people who will swear to you that they have personal experience of God, how many witnesses do you need ?

The number of people who believe something is true is irrelevant. Most people used to believe the Earth was flat, but that doesn't make it so.

[caspian]

Sure, there are some concepts of God which are either self-contradictory or have been ruled out by science, but if that is the God you are refering to then all you are doing is ignoring the educated, sophisticated wing of the opposition.

What "sophisticated" wing would that be then? Genuine question - I'm not being provocative. If you mean people who use obfuscatory arguments about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, then I wouldn't call that sophisticated. Or are you referring to philosophical interpretations of some of the more esoteric aspects of physics?

Why should God be scientifically testable? If you could test for God, then it would mean God just reacts to human actions like a deterministic physical system does. If he (it) didn't react deterministically, then the test could not be scientific. But if it does react deterministically, then what you are testing for is not deserving of the name "God."

That's just trying to have your cake and eat it. By that argument, it is possible to justify pretty much any theory you care to invent. Why not extend it to Father Christmas or the Flying Spaghetti Monster? By cracking open the door of subjectivity you allow a whole coach and horses to be driven through.

[PS_RalphW]

I wonder whether "God" is in fact an unexplained feature of our own brains.

Like I said, I could be wrong.

Dawkins will show you exactly where in the brain that circuit is on a CAT scan.

There is an epileptic man in the US who meets God every time he as a seizure. We doesn't want to be cured.

[UndercoverElephant]

Sure, there are some concepts of God which are either self-contradictory or have been ruled out by science, but if that is the God you are refering to then all you are doing is ignoring the educated, sophisticated wing of the opposition.

What "sophisticated" wing would that be then?

I mean persons with some sort of a grasp on basic science with a university-level education either in theology or philosophy. The current Archbishop of Canterbury would count.

Genuine question - I'm not being provocative. If you mean people who use obfuscatory arguments about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, then I wouldn't call that sophisticated.

Of course not. For a start, no theologians have ever discussed the answer to that question - it is a myth. Secondly, the myth refers to something supposedly discussed several hundred years ago, before the age of science and before the western world rediscovered Greek philosophy and started taking account of eastern philosophy.

Or are you referring to philosophical interpretations of some of the more esoteric aspects of physics?

I'm talking about philosophy. An understanding of the implications of some of the more esoteric aspects of physics also helps, but tends to be lacking even within the scientific community, so it's a bit much to expect it from theologians.

Why should God be scientifically testable? If you could test for God, then it would mean God just reacts to human actions like a deterministic physical system does. If he (it) didn't react deterministically, then the test could not be scientific. But if it does react deterministically, then what you are testing for is not deserving of the name "God."

That's just trying to have your cake and eat it. By that argument, it is possible to justify pretty much any theory you care to invent.

Not true. It's a perfectly valid argument, which depends only on the acceptance of the claim that God is not compelled to react deterministically to human actions. For most people, this is true by definition. In other words, for God to be scientifically testable you have to define the word "God" to mean something which is not compatible with what most theists call God. It cannot be applied to anything else except phenomena which are, by definition, non-physical, non-deterministic, "supernatural" or "paranormal".

Why not extend it to Father Christmas or the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

The flying spaghetti monster isn't defined to be a supernatural being. It is a mythical creature invented by atheists - a mythical physical creature (i.e. it's not supernatural/paranormal). Father Christmas is also a physical being, even though he is a physical being with the ability to move impossibly quickly. If you require that Father Christmas actually delivers presents to everybody on Christmas Eve then you can rule it out on the grounds that it breaks the laws of physics.

God, unless you think of God as an old man with a beard sitting on a cloud, isn't physical at all and does not have to break any physical laws in order to exist.

By cracking open the door of subjectivity you allow a whole coach and horses to be driven through.

All I am doing is presenting you with a valid philosophical argument. Here it is:

Premise 1: "God", in order to qualify as what most people (theists and atheists alike) call God, cannot simply behave like a deterministic, physical system. It has it's own will, and can "choose" whether/when to react to human actions.

Premise 2: Science can only verify the existence of phenomena which are repeatable and reliable. It can only investigate deterministic phenomena.

Conclusion (logically follows from 1 and 2): Science cannot test for God.

If you want to object to this argument then please explain whether you are challenging the premises or claiming that the conclusion does not follow from them.

[UndercoverElephant]

The old arguments about there being no evidence for the existence of God therefore God cannot exist don't hold water.

There are millions of people who will swear to you that they have personal experience of God, how many witnesses do you need ?

The number of people who believe something is true is irrelevant. Most people used to believe the Earth was flat, but that doesn't make it so.

That's another myth, made up by people who wanted to make people in past ages look much more stupid than they actually were. Several ancient civilisations had already shown that the world was spherical, and tried to measure it - including the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Chinese and the mediaevil muslims. Anyone who ever saw a ship disappear over the horizon had reason to believe the Earth wasn't flat, and that was quite a lot of people. Sailors did NOT believe that they could get to the edge of the world and fall off. They were worried about starving, running out of water or getting scurvy before finding land, but not falling off the edge of the world.

I might also add that there is a surprising amount of things which are believed by large numbers of scientists, but aren't actually true either. A typical example is "If God existed, science would be able to test for it." Dawkins himself has argued this, introducing the term "existence claims" as being the domain of science. "Existence claims" include the sort of empirical claims made by scientists and justified by scientific tests, but also includes all sorts of other claims such as "what sorts of things exist?" and "what sorts of causality exist?" which are metaphysical/ontological. He's a good scientist, but a rubbish philosopher. I am afraid Dr Dawkins should have stuck to the subject he is actually qualified to teach.

[biffvernon]

[Catweazle]

The old arguments about there being no evidence for the existence of God therefore God cannot exist don't hold water.

There are millions of people who will swear to you that they have personal experience of God, how many witnesses do you need ?

The number of people who believe something is true is irrelevant. Most people used to believe the Earth was flat, but that doesn't make it so.

I didn't write "believers", I wrote about people who will swear that they have personal experience. As real to them as you seeing your neighbour.

[Ludwig]

I wonder whether "God" is in fact an unexplained feature of our own brains.

Like I said, I could be wrong.

Dawkins will show you exactly where in the brain that circuit is on a CAT scan.

There is an epileptic man in the US who meets God every time he as a seizure. We doesn't want to be cured.

When I heard about that man a few years ago, I was interested, and found it sobering. I regarded it at the time as clear proof there was no transcendent reality, and that all numinous feeling was a delusion.

I no longer hold that view, because I of things I've read and experienced. Some of what I've read has had a mystical slant, some has been scientific material.

If minds like Niels Bohr and Richard Feynman can state - as they have - that nobody really understands quantum mechanics, that's enough to satisfy me that many who dismiss the possibility of a reality the beyond the material have not grasped the real depth of the mystery.

[UndercoverElephant]

http://www.DODGY TAX AVOIDERS.com/Quantum-Questions ... 0394723384

[Ludwig]

The old arguments about there being no evidence for the existence of God therefore God cannot exist don't hold water.

There are millions of people who will swear to you that they have personal experience of God, how many witnesses do you need ?

The number of people who believe something is true is irrelevant. Most people used to believe the Earth was flat, but that doesn't make it so.

I didn't write "believers", I wrote about people who will swear that they have personal experience. As real to them as you seeing your neighbour.

It's the issue of subjectivity again, isn't it? I've had a couple of somewhat odd experiences that, when I've described them, have prompted some people to hint that I was insane. Of course that is a possibility, but I'm not just going to take their word for it. I am not, at bottom, interested in convincing people that the world is more than a big machine, if they are so attached to this view that their only response to challenges to it is to try to refute them, without considering the possibility that they might be valid.

[SILVERHARP2]

Happened to catch a snipped of Mock the Week, the topic was things you wouldn’t here in a church – “that hymn was very well sung, a pity there is no one above to listen to it”

[caspian]

If minds like Niels Bohr and Richard Feynman can state - as they have - that nobody really understands quantum mechanics, that's enough to satisfy me that many who dismiss the possibility of a reality the beyond the material have not grasped the real depth of the mystery.

The statements made by physicists are saying that quantum mechanics is hard to understand because it runs counter to how we normally experience the world, which doesn't behave in a quantum way on the macroscopic scale. There's nothing mystical about the subject, but it can be quite difficult conceptualising these concepts outside of a purely mathematical framework.

But this is not to say that anything goes. To be scientific, any theory you come up with has to be consistent with what we already know, and have the ability to make predictions about the world, that can, in principle, be verified. Now, you might put your mystical hat on and say "ah, but just because something isn't scientific by that definition doesn't mean it's not real". But if something is "real" it needs to have evidence to support it surely? Otherwise literally anything you can imagine could be said to be real, thereby making the word meaningless.

So if there is a "reality the beyond the material", how do you propose that we investigate it? And how do you define such a "reality" in the first place?

[UndercoverElephant]

If minds like Niels Bohr and Richard Feynman can state - as they have - that nobody really understands quantum mechanics, that's enough to satisfy me that many who dismiss the possibility of a reality the beyond the material have not grasped the real depth of the mystery.

The statements made by physicists are saying that quantum mechanics is hard to understand because it runs counter to how we experience the world (which doesn't behave in a quantum way on the macroscopic scale).

But this is not to say that anything goes. To be scientific, any theory you come up with has to be consistent with what we already know, and have the ability to make predictions about the world, that can, in principle, be verified. Now, you might put your mystical hat on and say "ah, but just because something isn't scientific by that definition doesn't mean it's not real". But if something is "real" it needs to have evidence to support it surely? Otherwise literally anything you can imagine could be said to be real, thereby making the word meaningless.

So if there is a "reality the beyond the material", how do you propose that we investigate it? And how do you define such a "reality" in the first place?

Before you can answer the question "is there a reality beyond the material?", you have to establish what you mean by "material." The concept "material" was originally derived from the material world we directly experience - the one that you are experiencing right now. Is there any evidence to support the claim that there is anything beyond that realm? Strictly speaking, the answer is no. If such a realm exists, then there's no possibility that we could ever know anything about it, because it is beyond the veil of perception. The point I am trying to make is that there is more than one usage of "material" doing the rounds. It can mean (a) "the material world I directly experience" (a), or (b) "an external material world which is very much like the one I experience, except it is beyond the veil of perception and never experienced by anyone" or it can mean both of those things simultaneously. Before we can even ask a coherent question, we have to sort out this amibiguity in the meaning of "material" or "physical." This distinction doesn't matter very much for most applications of science, but becomes absolutely crucial if you happening to be talking about the nature of consciousness or metaphysical interpretations of quantum mechanics. QM causes a lot of people problems because they think of science as investigating material (b), but the only concept of material which makes sense from the perspective of QM is material (a). The cat in Schroedinger's box is only a material cat when the box is open and somebody is experiencing the contents (a). The cat which is in the closed box would be material (b) if it wasn't for the fact that QM implies there is not such thing as a material (b) cat, just a smeared out set of probabilities. The same problem occurs in cognitive science. When a person says "consciousness arises from brain processes" then "brain" can only refer to a material (b) brain. In every other branch of science, the distinction between a and b is irrelevant.

The reason that Kant is relevant to this debate is that his system starts off by drawing this distinction. He calls (a) phenomenal and (b) noumenal.