The atheists' dilemma

Process of Theology:

Theologist 1: "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
Theologist 2: "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

Theologist 1: "You are wrong and I can prove it." Pulls out ancient text A1A. "See here it plainly says Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Theologist 2: "Yeah but what about this?" Pulls out ancient text B2B. "See here. This plainly shows text A1A is wrong!".

Theologist 1: "Wrong! Here look at this important ancient document QE2. This obviously supports my first document, and that is why you are wrong!"

Theologist 2: "Wrong! This important ancient document R2D2 plainly shows your logic to be flawed."

Theologist 1: "Your evidence is not valid. I know this is so because my evidence plainly shows you are wrong."

Theologist 2: "That's just your opinion. Prove it!"

Theologist 1: "I have proven it. You just will not see that my evidence is correct. It is your opinion that is wrong, and your evidence that is faulty."

Theologist 2: "You obviously do not have the wisdom to see THE TRUTH when it is staring you in the face."

Theologist 1: "You are the one who lacks the true inner wisdom to see you are wrong."

Theologist 2: "Am not!"
Theologist 1: Are so!"
Theologist 2: "Not!"
Theologist 1: "Are!"
Theologist 2: "Not!"
Theologist 1: "Are!"
Theologist 2: "Not!"
Theologist 1: "Are!"

Both walk away knowing they are the one in the right and the other is the deluded fool.

Process of Science:

Scientist 1: "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
Scientist 2: "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

Scientist 1: "You are wrong and I can prove it". Pulls out experiment showing that his theory is correct".
Scientist 2: "I ran your experiment and I cannot get the same results you do. You theory is flawed."
Scientist 1: "Obviously you made a mistake replicating my experiment."
Scientist 2: "Don't think I did. Okay I ran it a second time and again could not replicate your results. I asked my good friend Scientist 3 to give it a try".
Scientist 3: "I could not replicate your results either Scientist 1. Your theory is flawed".

Scientist 1: "Look. I'm the pre-eminent man in this field. Who are you neanderthals to tell me I am wrong!"

Neanderthal 1: "Dammit. Stop picking on my species. We were just as smart as your species. Didn't you see our car insurance commercials?"

Scientist 3: "Who the heck was that?"
Scientist 2: "Just some neanderthal complaining. Again."

Neanderthal 1: "Hey. Watch it!"

Scientists 2&3: "Here's how it is Scientist 1. Your colleagues cannot replicate your results independently. Your theory is wrong. Those are the facts. Not open to personal opinion."

Scientist 1: "You know who I am? I’m the guy. THE guy! Neanderthals, the lot of you!”

Neanderthal 1: "Arrrrggghhhhhhhhhhhh!!"

Scientist 1: “I will prove I am right and you are wrong. I will devise another experiment that will prove my theory is valid.”

Scientists 2&3: “We will look forward to your results. But until and unless we can replicate your results, your theory cannot be considered valid. Whether you are THE GUY or not.

Scientist 1: “Hah!”
Scientist 2: “HaH!!”
Scientist 3: “HAH!”

Neanderthal 1: “Anyone want to do lunch?”
 
The atheist says ... 'one day those poor theists will figure it out'
The theist says ... 'one day those poor atheists will figure it out'

The observer notices there ate two different POVs, passing judgement on neither.
 
GKnots' entertaining description of scientists reminds me of a story I heard somewhere. I think it might be true.

Once upon a time, in a prestigious university on the coast of a great country, a young mathematician had the good fortune to be working with a revered scholar in his field. The Young Mathematician worked hard and learned a lot from his mentor, The Revered Scholar appreciated teaching someone with such a fine mind.

Years later, when the Young Mathematician was not so young anymore and the Revered Scholar was nearing the end of his career, the Not-So-Young Mathematician, was a tenured professor at a university on another coast. One day while he was writing calculations on his white board, he realized an astounding thing. His formulae appeared to disprove a long accepted principle of higher mathematics.

This can not be true, he thought. I must have made an error. He checked his calculations but no error could he find. He checked again with same results. How could this be? Everyone in his field knew, without doubt, the principle to be true. If he was right, that long accepted principle was false.

Not wanting to announce his finding without first getting the opinion of a trusted colleague, he sent his proof to the Revered Scholar for review. The next day he received an e-mail from his former mentor. "Come to my office immediately," it read.

Puzzled by the terse command, the Not-So-Young Mathematician took the next plane to the opposite coast and went straight-away to the office of the Revered Scholar.

When the Revered Scholar looked up and saw his visitor, he became red with rage. "Look what you've done," he shouted waving the ripped-apart and taped-back-together pages with mathematical formulae on them. The Not-So-Young Mathematician recognized them as containing his own work. "This is terrible", The Revered Scholar continued. "I hate you for this."

"Calm down," The Not-So-Young Mathematician said, patting the air in front of him. "Show me my error and I will admit I was wrong."

"There is no mistake," the Revered Scholar said, his head bowed. "That's why I hate you. Don't you realize that everything I've done is based on the principal that you've now destroyed. My whole life's work has been for naught." His hands now held his head like a vice; his fingers rubbing what little was left of his hair.

The Not-So-Young Mathematician left the Revered Scholar’s office with a heavy heart, but upon leaving the building he all but bounced down the steps. He soon won great, if begrudging, acclaim from his mathematical colleagues and became a Revered Scholar in his own right. His former mentor took an early retirement.
 

Thoughts on theology.

Hi Gordian Knot.

Thank you so much for your very correct and down-to-earth defense of science ! !
Science's built-in "self-critical" method is why science works.
Ultimately science (i.e. ultimately science-based "truth") is never about "belief," it's about "evidence."
Truth is relative, only as good as the current theory - that one theory which (so far, at least) remains uncontradicted by available data.
Truth evolves.

Cognitively, humans evolve. And right now in human history, "science" is the cutting edge of human cognitive development. Its most effective tool. Someday, an even more effective cognitive tool will likely be developed. But "science" is the best we've got, right now. And its method (very much) needs to be embraced.

I was quite heartily amused by your "Process of Theology" anecdote.
The world of "opinion" works this way. The world of "ideology."

But I consider myself an amateur theologist.
Which means I have more hope for theology than you obviously do.

Gordian Knot . . .
Have you read any of the Talmud? Lot of amusing stories, like yours.
Lot of disputation. Over a lot of arcane-seeming subjects. Right?
When God (or anyone claiming to speak for God) pipes up during rabbinic discussion on a particular subject (say, a legal judgment about someone's purported "bad" behavior) . . . the council of wise Rabbis chastises the interruption. They tell God to go back to heaven,
"Through Moses, You've given us-humans Your rulebook, okay? . . . It is our turn - the human turn - to figure things out. So chill, God, alright?"
So the Rabbis dispute and dispute, each quoting scripture and matching one quote to some other quote at the other end of the Bible. Back and forth it goes. But in the end, they come to a consensus agreement.

How did they get there?
The Hebrew Bible is chock full of brutality and nonsense, when taken as literal history or some legal demand from God.
But this rabbinic process of disputation culminates when one very shrewd rabbi has matched one particular quote to one other (but seemingly unrelated) quote from a far corner of the Bible, breaking the deadlock.

It is not about "logic" (logic being a pre-scientific/flawed process). It is not about which rabbi has come up with the "truth." It is not about "human cognitive development."
(It is not about the brain. It is about the human heart.)

It is about the emotionally correct answer, in this time and in this place, for the specific individual involved.
It is, ultimately, about "human affective development."
Not what was "good for our grandparents" conduct-wise, but what is "good for people now" (at least for this specific person, right now, even should the consensus rabbinic judgment appear - at first reading - to directly contradict every one of the Ten Commandments!).
Which judgment ultimately provides the most humane answer?
This is the bottomline. It is about emotion. About how humans relate to other humans. It is about the advance of humane human behavior.

This is a very different process - isn't it, Gordian Knot? - than one in which you describe.

Aristotelian logic was pre-scientific, but helped lead the way toward modern science.
The disputation of the rabbis (or of early Christian "fathers" or of Muslim clerics) may be pre-theological - in terms of "affective development," in somewhat the same way.
But (to me) there is an honest process to how "theology" operates.
Except . . .

Well . . . tries to operate. It's a process currently seen through fogged glass. This "process" has not ripened yet.
The older process of the rabbis and church-fathers and clerics . . . still needs work. But the old stuff is very worth studying.
Because the way in which humans have changed emotionally over the centuries, I personally believe to have come about via an instrument which is at the emotional cutting edge of affective human development - that emotional instrument, historically, being the core force underlying human religion.
Nothing less!

And that core/cutting-edge - I view as being some kind of proto-theology.
It is not about logic or truth. It is about the emotional meaning of human relationships. At a very deep level.

It is not a sociological or political question (a "public world" question).
It is ultimately a very private question, a religious question.

Like science, what is at stake is a "process," not an object.
Actually, any "object" ("truth," "meaning," whatever) is always temporary.

Even if science someday successfully debunks "God" and "Nirvana" (and everything religious in between), the affective questions (the religious questions) will remain. Because the goal of human emotional development is never about truth, it is always about meaning.
(Meaning for me today. Meaning during my lifetime. Meaning for my endeavors - which I wish to hand over to others to continue once I've gone.)

And the tentative answers to these deep affective questions, I believe, will find clear voice in a process our grandchildren will rightly be as proud of as scientists are, regarding their discipline.
An emotion-based disputation process our grandchildren will be proud to call . . . "theology."

Jane.

 
Marcia, Jane, thank you both for some very thoughtful and interesting input. I must do some pondering on your thoughts, and when I find my center (which interestingly enough involves my thoughts and my feelings finding a common ground) I will be responding to both of you. Soonest!
 
Gordian Knot said:
Thomas. Theology is most certainly NOT a science!
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Of course it is. Metaphysics, to Aristotle, is the First Science.

Every science proceeds according to its axioms.

Gordian Knot said:
Again, what separates science from any other endeavor is the scientific method.
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What method is that?

Gordian Knot said:
If any group does not use the scientific method, what they are doing is not science. And it is impossible to use the scientific method when it comes to Gods and miracles and all the other concepts about religions that are not in any way provable.
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Ah, you mean the empirical sciences ...

... then I quite agree. The empirical sciences can have nothing to say about Gods or miracles, other than the possibility lies outside their axioms.

Where I dig my heels in with 'scientism' is the assumption that the physical sciences can and will one day prove or disprove everything ... in effect that everything must be quantifiable.

Not every science is founded upon determinable quantity. There are sciences that consider the qualitative and proceed from there with the same intellectual honesty and rigour as any other.

Gordian Knot said:
Science cannot prove Gods exist. Science cannot prove that Gods do not exist. It's like trying to put the proverbial round peg in the square hole. It just is not possible.
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Again, you're talking of the empirical or physical sciences.

Metaphysics argues the case for God with as much reason, logic and rationality as any other science, but it's axiomatic to metaphysics that some things are beyond the physical and empirical.

Gordian Knot said:
One has to be able to prove/disprove a theory in order for it to be science. And it isn't just religion that fails. There has been a heated debate for decades whether psychology is a science or not. Like theology, psychology is often dealing with intangibles. Not anything that can be tested for or against. A lot of very bogus junk was believed to be true within psychiatric circles that turned out to be wrong. But it was never 'proven' to be true in the first place. It was approval by majority rule.
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But cosmology is a science, and is wide open with unknowns.

And a lot of bogus junk is spoken of Quantum Mechanics and the Neurosciences. It is bound to happen when such sciences catch the popular imagination.

Gordian Knot said:
People love to bandy around that phrase 'blind faith in science'. Some times it is a legitimate claim.
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99% of the time, if not more. Everyone expects the light to come on or their DVD to play, but few can explain the actual mechanics.

Take gravity, we take it on trust, according to how we experience the world. I was gob-smacked when I learned that the gravity on the Space Station is about 90% that of earth. They're not floating, it's just everything is falling around the earth at the same rate.

Gordian Knot said:
More often than not it is a misunderstanding about the process of science that causes people to believe that phrase. Take Dark Matter (Please!) for example. There is not enough matter in a galaxy to keep all the matter within it rotating at the same speed. Therefor there must be something else that is causing this to happen. I've heard people complain that science is making up imaginary stuff to fix a theory they cannot explain. "That stuff just has got to be there!" They say this is akin to blind faith.
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Well I've heard one scientist – in New Scientist – claim that we've constructed a viable working theory within certain assumed parameters, but we're pushing that envelope and so the parameters are being stretched ... or is it that we have made certain, fundamentally limiting, assumptions?

Quantum Mechanics accepts as axiomatic that a different physics works at the micro level. Now we have two physics where we once had one, and now we're looking for the 'Third Physics' that binds them all together.

It all starts from observation, intellectual capacity, and conviction.

Gordian Knot said:
But it isn't. Nobody is stating that this invisible stuff exists and that is the answer. Scientists are saying that there may be this invisible stuff which would explain the anomaly. It is a theory. One that may end up being shot down. That's the other great thing about scientists. They (mostly) are not afraid to say they do not know the answer to something that is perplexing.
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But there may be God, it's neither illogical, unreasonable nor irrational.

Take on 'proof': The First Cause.

We now observe particles that appear as if from nowhere, we cannot explain why, and we posit then that ... they just do. They can.

But I would wonder:
Are there subtle causes, beyond our ken, of which we are unaware?
And Quantum Mechanics seems to refute the First Law of Thermodynamics. Now we could argue that the FLoT proposes a 'fixed' amount of energy as an average, with a fluctuation allowance – and such a fluctuation in the micro might well have been the cause of the Big Bang – but then, even if a particle springs in and out of being for an infinitesimally short time, then the FLoT is not fixed, its a variable, and the law breaks. The fact that the variation happens in the Quantum world is from our viewpoint and I would suggest in that sense it's a bit of a cheat.

So maybe they don't emerge from nowhere, they emerge from a change of state somewhere, we just haven't spotted it yet?

+++

If the empirical sciences are true to their intellectual rationale, then they simply can't say 'God does not exist', because they can't prove it. They can say 'we have no proof of the existence of God' ergo we see no reason to believe, and that's all well and good ... but again, I'd say that the first thing man contemplates, the First Science, is the meaning of things.

The physical and empirical sciences are the measure of things.

Different kettle. Different axioms.
 
The atheist's dilemma is his or her struggle to deny the undeniable. When asked for the option to fill in the vacuum left as a result of the removal of the Primal Cause, the usual answer is: I don't know. That's indeed a frustrating dilemma.

Let us avoid the theist method to demonstrate the existence of God to prevent the atheist denial and use Logic which I suppose stands on neutral ground by trying to demonstrate the existence of God by means of a syllogism:

1. First premise: The universe is composed of matter;
2. Second premise: Matter cannot cause itself to exist;
3. Resultant premise: Therefore, the universe was caused to exist.

Now, what could have be the thing that caused the universe to exist? The atheist answer is: I don't know. Yeah, because the only thing they know is that the Primal Cause does not exist. Indeed, a frustrating dilemma which finds explanation only in the atheist struggle to vandalize Theism just for the sake of doing so.
 
I don't know is NOT a dilemma it is an honest answer.

It is the ones that say they know for certain that are being dishonest...with themselves.
 
wil said:
I don't know is NOT a dilemma it is an honest answer.

It is the ones that say they know for certain that are being dishonest...with themselves.
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And when they claim that God does not exist, where is the honesty to deny the concept of probability? Now, those who claim they know by means of Logic they are not dishonest because the atheists cannot refute that claim. Why? Because they don't know much about Logic.
 
LOL....they don't know much about logic.....for the most part the most logical atheist compete quite well with the most logical theists....

In order of logical it goes...agnostic then atheist then theist. In my opinion....as a theist (0r rather a nontheistic panentheist unitic... the nontheistic part is I don't believe in the old passive aggressive off his meds white guy that I was raised to believe in and many believe as G!d...
 
wil said:
LOL....they don't know much about logic.....for the most part the most logical atheist compete quite well with the most logical theists....

In order of logical it goes...agnostic then atheist then theist. In my opinion....as a theist (0r rather a nontheistic panentheist unitic... the nontheistic part is I don't believe in the old passive aggressive off his meds white guy that I was raised to believe in and many believe as G!d...
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Oh! I can see your problem. You must be a member of the literal interpretation club. You know, the fanatic kind with an anthropomorphic idea of God. This is the kind of believers in talking serpents.
 
This is the kind that is most prevalent in the US.... I am not one...I rejected what I saw as nonsense and moved on.

So maybe you need to start educating atheists on what this G!d is that you believe in.
 
wil said:
This is the kind that is most prevalent in the US.... I am not one...I rejected what I saw as nonsense and moved on.

So maybe you need to start educating atheists on what this G!d is that you believe in.
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They don't like me Wil, Most of them can't even identify the premises of a syllogism which leads to the Logic for the existence of God. Either that or they get terribly frustrate that a theist has forced them into the corner of their own brains.
.
 
don't like you? How could that be... You are educating them, showing them the errors in their ways, enlightening them as to the reality of the existence of a supreme being...

But you avoided that... surely when you tell me how many atheists have bought into your logic you'll also tell us what this supreme being creator is...
 
wil said:
don't like you? How could that be... You are educating them, showing them the errors in their ways, enlightening them as to the reality of the existence of a supreme being...

But you avoided that... surely when you tell me how many atheists have bought into your logic you'll also tell us what this supreme being creator is...
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First of all, I have never told you any thing about atheists having bought into the logical premise for the existence of God which you call "my logic." Would you be able to tell me what was there before the big bang? Neither you nor all atheists can. So, it won't be catastrophic if I don't know about the essence of the Supreme Creator. What I can say is enough for you and for them that the Supreme Creator is the Primal Cause Who gave origin to the universe which I have proved and still can by means of the concept of Causality in a way that the only thing atheists can do is to try to disprove the concept of Causality in the hope that it will affect the Primal Cause. It doesn't though, because I have the concept of Logic to back me up.
 
Shibolet said:
Now, to all atheists, I have the following message: I am ready to give you the benefit of the doubt and probably even my word that I am ready to change my views about the universe if there is one that believes the universe caused itself to exist. If the answer stands the screening of Logic, my proposal is as good as gold that I'll be no longer a theist.
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Shibolet,

I'm sorry I didn't respond to your challenge earlier. I know I wrote a response but I must have forgotten to submit it, or something, because it appears not to be here. So here's take 2:

As an atheist my position is not that the universe caused itself to exist. I don't know why the Big Bang happened. I can imagine that there must be some kind of creative force that would have caused it, but I do not assume that this force is necessarily an all-powerful, all-knowing, source of absolute morals who hears us and has an interest in us. This force may be as indifferent as gravity and as sentient as a rock. It does not have to have to have the characteristics that are usually associated with God.

So, as an atheist, I have no dilemma. You, a theist, appear to have no dilemma That's fine with me. If there were no theists, who else could I have these interesting conversations with?

Let's hear it for multiculturalism!
 
Marcialou said:
Shibolet,

I'm sorry I didn't respond to your challenge earlier. I know I wrote a response but I must have forgotten to submit it, or something, because it appears not to be here. So here's take 2:

As an atheist my position is not that the universe caused itself to exist. I don't know why the Big Bang happened. I can imagine that there must be some kind of creative force that would have caused it, but I do not assume that this force is necessarily an all-powerful, all-knowing, source of absolute morals who hears us and has an interest in us. This force may be as indifferent as gravity and as sentient as a rock. It does not have to have to have the characteristics that are usually associated with God.

So, as an atheist, I have no dilemma. You, a theist, appear to have no dilemma That's fine with me. If there were no theists, who else could I have these interesting conversations with?

Let's hear it for multiculturalism!
Click to expand...

Nice post Marcialou but, of course you are not contemplating to dance the dance of joy for having hit two birds with one stone. I am sorry to rain on your parade but you missed the target. One thing though impressed me in your post: Your honesty. I could detect no hidden agenda and this is beautiful.
 
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