Will Wilkinson - Latest Comments in PosnerBlogging: Take One

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

McClain — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 20:26:30 -0000

Wow, I think that 'comment spam' served as an excellent meta-whatever.

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

Jeff Licquia — Mon, 03 Jan 2005 09:51:30 -0000

There is no acceptable test even conceivable that would provide evidence of God's existence, by definition.

Nonsense. Here's your test:

"Hey God, if you're there, show yourself to me."

If he does, there's your proof. (Of course, accounting for fraud, and so forth.)

Proof of God's nonexistence is of course a different matter, but that's the old "prove a negative" problem. Unfortunately, given the sparseness of evidence like the above, that's about all we have to work with.

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

bob mcmanus — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 08:14:49 -0000

"A hidden message in pi or e (a la Carl Sagan's Contact) would do it, at least to a very high probability."

Well, that would prove something had existed in the past, its nature depending on the content of the message, but even it had said "I exist always" we wouldn't have to believe it.

But you know if we let imaginations run wild, the Big Dude could just open the sky like drapes and shout "Here I am!". Now such an event is not in my ontology, but there are millions of people who expect that exact event to happen... "Left Behind" club. I, as a secular modernist, have spent part of my life trying to view that group as something other than superstitious savages.

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 06:50:34 -0000

"There is no acceptable test even conceivable that would provide evidence of God's existence, by definition."

A hidden message in pi or e (a la Carl Sagan's Contact) would do it, at least to a very high probability. On the other hand, there is no conceivable test to prove the *non*existence of God, since if God does exist he could always spoil the results of any test in order to hide himself.

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

McClain — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 05:52:54 -0000

Didn't mean to patronize, Wili - just relating my personal experience, for what it's worth.
I don't see atheism as merely a juvenile affectation.
It makes sense enough, as far as it goes, and suits some personality types better than any other belief would.
There are folks who would serve God better if they didn't believe in Him. (Her. It. Whatev....)

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

Wili Wáchendon — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 01:33:24 -0000

Matt:
"I'll grant that some devotional environments are explicitly designed to induce a sort of temporary euphoria, but those are the exceptions, and they don't account for the prevalence of religious identification"

Many do convert due to some kind of 'spiritual experience', though. John C. Wright a notable recent example http://mostlyfiction.com/authorqa/wright.htm

McClain:
Identifying atheism/agnosticism with teen rebellion is breathtakingly patronising. As it happens, I was raised atheist, and never identified as anything else, though it took a little longer for my worldview to become fully naturalistic. YMMV

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

Luka Yovetich — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 21:25:07 -0000

By the by,

I agree with you Will that 'atheist' does not have two distinct meanings. Posner is wrong about that. It's just that I think that there are two kinds of atheists.

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

McClain — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 20:01:15 -0000

Re: "fruitful debating of God's existence...."
If you're brought up believing in "Santa-God," you might lose that belief after enough talk (and thought.) (And growing up.)
And you might go on to think and talk about what the Real Reasons are for all that stuff you used to believe "Santa-God" did.
At that point, you'd be calling yourself an atheist or agnostic. (You'd also probably be in your teens-through-twenties, and into 'progressive/edgy' music, politics, and clothes.)
Later on, after even more talk and thought, you might, surprisingly enough, find yourself believing in God, just not "Santa-God."
(Yeah, you might have guessed, this is all from personal experience.)
So: belief is neither innate nor immutable.
Talking about such things is far from futile.
Also, what's more fruitless:
A - debating God's existence,
or
B - debating whether it's fruitless to debate God's existence?
If 'B' then shouldn't we keep going and debate whether the debate of the debate...ah, you know the rest.

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

Alex B. — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 18:15:37 -0000

Maestro, I think your "get serious" reply to Bob M. gets it wrong. The obvious response seems to be that an acceptable test need simply be consistent w/ the laws of nature.

The idea of exploring every nook and cranny of the universe should be fine, even if it would be really difficult to marshal the resources. The billions of explorer spaceships need not have infinite fuel or take infinite time (unless the universe is infinite, in which case Bob is in trouble).

As for a "god detection" machine, there's no reason to believe that such a machine can be built.

I don't necessarily like the verification criterion of meaning, but I think that's how one of its adherents might reply.

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

Alex B. — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 17:56:04 -0000

Julian,

The distinction clarifies two different types of atheism. Weak vs. strong, the way I'm stating it, is about whether someone lacks belief in god or positively believes in god's nonexistence; the distinction deals with belief about existence simpliciter, not belief about the possibility of existence.

I think it's a useful distinction for a couple of reasons. First, someone who has never thought about the supernatural in any capacity is, I would claim, an atheist because they lack belief in god's existence. Someone who has given the issue deep thought and intellectually decided that god doesn't exist has gone a step further. They have a belief that the "weak" atheist doesn't, namely: "God doesn't exist." The second very similar reason is that I find it helpful to distinguish between agnostics (who lack the belief "god exists") and atheists who outright reject god.

I think that the distinction really does capture two different worldviews, even though I don't often make it in practice. Usually, I just say 'atheist' to mean anyone who lacks belief in god.

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

bob mcmanus — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 15:55:10 -0000

"Your comment upstream about the "spiritual experience" being a biochemical function is a diversion"

I considered her comment to be something of an analogy to autism.

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

Maestro — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 14:39:43 -0000

As long as we're imagining that we can have faster than light travel and unlimited fuel, I'm going to imagine that I've almost completed building my god-detection machine. Let it run for a few million years and we'll probably know whether or not God exists. Get serious, mcmanus.

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

bob mcmanus — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 11:12:53 -0000

"Explain to me how you would prove the nonexistence of aliens?"

A billion FTL scoutships, with unlimited fuel and wormhole capability etc etc would discover no aliens or artifacts in a million years of survey and allow us to assign a probability etc etc. The Vienna rule is about whether a test can be imagined, not about whether a test is practical possible.

There is no acceptable test even conceivable that would provide evidence of God's existence, by definition. Tho that has not prevented people from pretending.

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

Matt — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 08:58:57 -0000

Joanna-
Your comment upstream about the "spiritual experience" being a biochemical function is a diversion. Very few religious believers ever get a buzz off of worship - it's not what most devotees are in it for. Whether someone adopts a religious ontology or not has little to do with their biological predisposition toward "happy juice" or the lack thereof.

I'll grant that some devotional environments are explicitly designed to induce a sort of temporary euphoria, but those are the exceptions, and they don't account for the prevalence of religious identification.

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

Maestro — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 08:26:50 -0000

Explain to me how you would prove the nonexistence of aliens?

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

Luka Yovetich — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 08:08:16 -0000

monkyboy,

I think that to accept a theory is to think that it accounts for the facts in some important way.

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

bob mcmanus — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 08:01:19 -0000

"Unless we're using the word believe differently"

Duh. Unlike aliens on Triton, the existence(?)of God is not even theoretically a falsifiable proposition. Which, as Posner and Will say, makes it nonsense under most modern ontologies.

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

Luka Yovetich — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 07:56:34 -0000

Maestro,

The point is that there are tons of things that we say we don't believe in even though it's logically possible that they exist. We (and probably most agnostics about God) say that we son't believe in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, elves, goblins, or purple dragons. But it's logically possible that all of these exist.

So if you're willing to say that you don't believe in them even though they are logically possible, then you should be willing to say that you don't believe in God even though it's logically possible that He exists. (That is, you shouldn't say that you're agnostic if the only positive thing you can say about God existing is that it's logically possible.

The life on other planets example isn't exactly analogous to the God one , I don't think. B/c I don't think that we have much reason to believe one way or the other that there is other life in the universe. We're not agnostic about it just because it's logically possible. We also don't have lots of reasons to think that it isn't the case. (Whereas with Santa Claus, goblins, etc. we do.)

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

Maestro — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 02:33:34 -0000

Luka, what's ridiculous about that? It's logically possible that there's intelligent life on other planets, but I can't prove it or disprove it. I can't say whether or not I believe that there is. Unless we're using the word believe differently, I don't see how this is ridiculous or different from not believing in God.

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

Luka Yovetich — Tue, 28 Dec 2004 20:20:37 -0000

Julian,

I agree that many people who call themselves 'agnostic' merely think that it's logically possible that God exists and that since they can't prove that He doesn't exist they can't say that they believe that he doesn't. And that IS ridiculous.

But I think there are some people who say they are agnostic and truly think that it's just as likely that God exists as it is that He doesn't. And these people belong in a different (sub)category than the people mentioned above.

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

Luka Yovetich — Tue, 28 Dec 2004 20:15:43 -0000

Will,

I'm not sure that there isn't an interesting point in here somewhere that has to do with people's attitudes towards propositions. Insofar as we're talking about whether there are different kinds of atheism (in some sense) I think we should be talking about the different probabilities that people assign to the proposition that God exists. (Assigning a probablity to a proposition is an example of having an attitude towards one, right?)

The case that I'm imagining does not necessarily include a person who has never considered whether not there is a God. I'm thinking of two people. One who assigns a .9 probability to the proposition that God exists (p) and another who assigns a .5 to p. The first person is clearly an atheist b/c he is very confident in p. It's not quite so clear what to call the second. He thinks, after considering all of the major philosophical arguments, that it's just as likely that p as it is that not p.

I want to call this guy an atheist. He does not have a positive belief in God. He is without a belief in God. Yet we cannot say of him that he believes that God does not exist.

It seems fairly clear to me that if he's an atheist, he's a different kind of atheist than the guy who believes that God does not exist.

Now, I'm not sure I understand how or if your point about quantifying god-making properties is relevantly related to this point. But I stand firm in my position that there is an interesting distinction to be made here.

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

Bran — Tue, 28 Dec 2004 16:10:00 -0000

Jonathan Swift said, "You can't reason someone out of what they were
never reasoned into."

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

bob mcmanus — Tue, 28 Dec 2004 16:05:24 -0000

No I think Posner is correct. There are people who think Wittgenstein's picture-theorey is correct, and those who think the picture-theorey is mistaken, and there are those who say "Who's Wittgenstein?" The last are not by default Witthenstein-disbelievers, nor are they agnostics.

When you say the word "atheism" (or "agnosticism") has a meaning, you have entered a metaphysical discourse.

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

bob mcmanus — Tue, 28 Dec 2004 15:41:05 -0000

"weak atheists or agnostics mean something like: "Well, it's *logically* possible that there's a God"

The problem with this whole line is that we are not dealing with a rational or logical or empirical question. We are dealing with a spiritual or emotional question. Was it possible for Jesus to turn water into wine? No tricks here, no semantics or explanations, just a wave of the hand and Perrier becomes Boones Farm. Can a rationalist or empiricist even begin to discuss this? The transcendant is by definition a discontinuity, a rupture, an absolute and qualitative break with rational systems. Its logical possibility is zero. Yet millions of smart people say it exists.

Re: PosnerBlogging: Take One

monkyboy — Tue, 28 Dec 2004 14:42:25 -0000

It's true there are many people who change their religious beliefs, but how many do so as the result of a rational argument? Not many.

Take the secular theories of The Big Bang and Evolution. You can take them for what they are, theories, the best stories so far about the data that has been discovered about the origin of, well, life, the universe, etc. But they are just that, stories, as unprovable as the existance of god.

Scientific people believe the theories, but accept and consider arguments against them. Secular zealots, on the other hand, mistakenly take them as facts and fight any school from teaching anything different.

God and Evolution can easily be accepted as theories. To believe them as facts, though, takes something beyond reason...I think that is what Posner is saying.