Feathered T-Rex

Poststructural Pub
81

Thanks Walden. That’s the question. Yeah, why?
The rest of the last couple pages of this thread are just so much blather and concept-dissection worship. It’s not about whether you make a comprehensible point, it’s about whether there are holes in the verbal structure of your argument that I can call into question.

So, Emm, go hang out in a less long-winded thread. Yes, I will thanks.

edit to say…yeah,yeah, it’s easy to call things blather when your mind is really too cluttered and fluffy to sort through them. So, really, what I’m doing is going to hang out in a dumb thread.

82

Although I’ve been trained to play this game, I’ve never seen an attempt to prove the existence of God which I could take seriously. I’m inclined to think that it has more to do with faith, or lack of faith, than with reason.

If I recall, this all started with the claim that there must be a reason why contingent beings came into existence. This could be true without it being even a tiny bit probable that human beings could ever discover it or that they could fathom it even if they discovered it. I distrust the reduction of issues that look as though they should be fiendishly difficult to the level of a silly parlour game—that’s what the ontological argument looks like to me for example.

I’m not against cosmology but I really think our ultimate theories can only be about that part of the universe our epistemic powers can penetrate. There is no saying how extensive that is.

83

How do you know?

84

My dog worships me.

85

delete

86

But we are given no reason to believe that there actually is an explanation.

In fact, there is no reason to believe that anything in the universe is “contingent” in any ultimate sense. In an eternal universe of unescapable cause and effect, each stage is a necessary result of what went before.


This was from ‘our’ Darwin. Mike, ‘inference to the best explanation’
is common in science–this is the idea that we are justified
in accepting the best explanation to a phenomenon that
needs explaining. The Cosmo Argument maintains that
the activity of a non-Contingent Being is the best explanation
of the fact that there are some contingent beings rather
than none at all. That is a reason to accept that explanation.

Even if the universe
is eternal, each stage being a necessary result of what
went before, it is still
full of contingent beings–that is, beings that exist either by chance
or due to the agency of other things, hence needn’t have been.
Remember the infinite series of kangaroos. NONE of them
need have existed, there need have been no such series–so the question: Why are there some
kangaroos rather than noneat all ? remains. And one can’t advert
to kangaroos to answer it. But the same question remains
if there is an infinite series of Contingent Beings, and
we cannot advert to Contingent Beings to answer it.
So, if there is an explanation, it must appeal to the
agency of somehting non-contingent.

The point is that the Cosmo Argument works just the same
if the universe existed eternally. Whether one accepts or rejects
the argument, it’s worth appreciating what the argument
is. It is NOT the argument that the universe must have
a beginning.

On the other hand, that the U apparently
does have a beginning may well provide support for
the idea of a Creator outside the natural order. Let there
be light! Bang. But that isn’t the Cosmological Argument.

Emmline, this is what is sometimes called Natural Theology,
forgive me if I’m telling what you already know.
The idea is that reasoning scientifically from the facts of
nature, we can provide good reasons to believe in God.
Religion is good science. Scientific reasoning is pretty
obscure sometimes and hard to follow, and may look
like wordgames–but when one actually engages obscure
science that looks like word games (E =MC2) it usually is something worth considering. There is difficult and arcane stuff worth considering,
and the effort to support religion by appeal to the natural
order is like this, I submit–considerably more than empty
intellectualizing–if one closes with it.

Walden, you mention the possibility that the natural order
looks like it’s swimming in suffering because it is fallen.
A question I have is When did it fall? Most of the suffering
that’s happened appears to have preceded human beings
by hundreds of millions of years. Do you think
humans were here from the first? Not a rhetorical question. Best

87

I observe.

88

Two people throughout history certainly deserve our respect: the person who invented Creation, and the person who discovered the opposite.

89

What was your sample size?

90

Heh heh heh heh

91

42

92

But this stuff isn’t particularly difficult. Part of my objection to this pre-Cartesian stuff is that it makes the incredibly difficult seem easy. That and the fact that, unlike science, it is ludicrously underconstrained by evidence.

93

No wonder! Don’t forget to include coyotes…I strongly suspect they’re doing something out there in my meadow besides drinking, and laughing at God.

94

Mail-ordering dangerous stuff from ACME.

95

There’s really no need to have any dispute over the theory of evolution (or all the other theories that creationists dispute, in geology, physics, cosmology etc).

The fact is, scientists will use any theory that makes accurate predictions about what they observe. If there ever was an “alternate theory of scientific creationism” which did better, or had any other advantages, they’d use it. No hard feelings, no religious disputes, we just want to make accurate predictions.

School textbooks are also a simple matter: kids should be taught in science class the stuff that scientists actually use—just like kids in driver’s ed are taught to drive cars, but not hovercraft or time machines.

So the whole dispute over teaching alternate theories in school could be solved overnight if creationists just wrote down these “alternate theories” they keep advocating, told us what specific predictions they make separate from evolution, and proposed some experiments which could confirm or disconfirm them. For whatever reason, however, this has never happened. We’ve only heard about these theories, secondhand, that they’re out there somewhere.

Caj

96

Well, I’ve certainly seen dogs and cats in church, in my days. I don’t recall any barking hallelujah or meowing amen, but I did see a couple pigs run squealing through during the sermon, one time.

I recall a cat sitting in service, in one church I visited, with that “Oh please… what’s going on here?” look that only cats can make, and I could so relate.

97

Good comment.

When I was young, my teachers advised that I should study religion before I studied science. When I graduated from that school, and on to the next–as I grew older, my teachers advised that I should have studied science first. Looking back, I now would advise anyone to study science and history first. Only then can religion and philosphy become meaningful and assume it’s proper place. The whys should be obvious to anyone who knows the difference.

98

How are you justified in applying a rule of empirical science to a metaphysical argument? Why is this not like looking through a telescope only to conclude that the temperature is “warm.” This not a rhetorical question.

99

The following poem was based on an ancient fable which was told in India:

The Blind Men and the Elephant
by John Godfrey Saxe

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very much like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me it’s mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very much like a spear!”

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very much like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
“It’s clear enough the Elephant
Is very much like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “Even the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very much like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very much like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

Moral:

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has ever seen!

(Admit it, you had to wonder when this was going to show up on the thread) :boggle:


Will O’Ban

100

I contend that no fewer than thirty eight angels could dance on the needle, but that they choose not to.