St Paul, the New Atheists and District 9

Ah, the Impostle Saul Paulus. The great curtain that prevents us seeing what Jesus the Nazarene was really like. Or, perhaps if he had not existed, we'd never even have heard of JtN... Interesting discussion on the fake letters. I think it demonstrates just how shaky the New Testament is.

BTW, William, re David Fergusson: you got the Pixies in there! Good man!

And at the risk of pre-jacking this thread, did anyone else get the impression that Fergusson is not exactly mounting much of a challenge if he wants Dawkins to head off and read Aquinas? Maybe he'd be better getting *Christians* to read Aquinas, and then follow that up with The God Delusion. Wholesome, healthy combination.

-H

Funny, I heard the word "subjective", or if you like, "within the tradition" or "doesn't make any difference", or "tone" (of writing), or "adapted"... or "disputed", but fake? Maybe the pixie waved her magic wand and bleeped it out. :-)

On Dawkins, what he said was that he wasn't engaging substantially enough; I would have thought that with you being a scientist you'd have been a tad more accurate in your reporting. :-)

But there I go *interpreting* again; I just can't seem to shake the idea that words mean something. :-)

Thanks for the recommendation, Will - it certainly can't be any worse than Lennox's effort; the only problem is that before you get anywhere close to "theologically engaged" (never mind married ;-), you need to demonstrate that there is a theo that there's any blinkin' point in having a logy about in the first place. I was impressed that Fergusson dismisses the fine tuning, design and first cause arguments. This suggests that he has perhaps given the issue some intelligent thought, unlike Craig, Plantinga, Lennox or McGrath. He'll still be doing pretty well if he comes up with anything other than a sermon to the choir.

H

That sort of goes round in a circle -
you say you can't believe in something as silly as God.

I say that God isn't a silly idea - consult the "Summa" and that will give you a taster.

You say "I don't need to read about a silly idea to know its silly". QED.

Also let's look at "demonstrate". If you mean demonstrate so that there can be no rational disagreement on the matter, then nope, can't do it. But then is there uniform agreement on the units of selection in Natural Selection. That doesn't mean that Dawkins is wrong.

(On that point, I'm pretty sure that McGrath didn't really research "The Selfish Gene". I don't think he know what Dawkins means by "Gene" in this context.)

There was rational disagreement on Freud, Depth Psychology, Marxism, etc. That doesn't mean that it was a waste of time reading Freudian therapists and biographies or Marxist historians when considering Marxism or Freudianism. As a matter of fact it was essential that such writers explore and apply their ideas.

At the end of the day there are very different yet very rational interpretations of texts (and blogs). The lack of consensus doesn't make the disagreements meaningless. You just have to make a judgment.

GV

"I was impressed that Fergusson dismisses the fine tuning, design and first cause arguments..."

I have to say H, I haven't seen any devastating replies or objections to these arguments on the blog (the latter two have been discussed many times.)

McGrath doesn't really discuss these arguments in any depth, and doesn't seem to think that they're very important. I don't know Lennox's work. Plantinga only believes that FineTuning supports Theism (it's evidence that Theism can explain). It isn't a demonstrative proof. I don't know that he's discussed the other arguments in any depth sice "God and Other Minds". Will can keep us right on that one.

GV

Hi Graham,
I think this is a very very different issue. The question IS whether or not a god actually exists in the first place; if we can establish that, we can go off and speculate about its nature, its agenda, its views of human reproductive behaviour etc etc, what it does on Sundays and all that. But we're not at that point (yet!), and on that I think the New Atheists are entirely correct.

So I have no objection to reading the Summa (or the Summat) per se, but I would rather like Fergusson and co to point out what exactly we *do* with this; as usual it seems like the theologians are simply begging the question. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but theological writings are like recipe books for pan-fried unicorn in a raspberry jus, served on a bed of sliced artichoke.

First catch your unicorn; there's not a lot of point in drooling over the recipe until that little item is attended to.

Maybe I've got Aquinas all wrong; if you can explain how he sources his ingredients, I would be grateful.

-H

Pre-mod is sooo cool. Now how long do I have to wait to see what H has said?

Doo ta-ta da

---Your post is important to us..please keep checking back whilst we try not to get sued---

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Over half an hour later...

La ta tee da ti dumm...we do value your post, but we don't like legal action ---- Do wop shee whad i wop

Hi Graham, is there any evidence that theism *can't* explain? It's an ad hoc claptil of a notion; ANYTHING is compatible with theism. It explains everything, and therefore explains nothing.

-H

I would respond on this thread, but with 5 comments awaiting moderation, I've no idea where the discussion is at. So I won't.

Premoderation = discussion stopper.

Helio

I know I've asked this before, but no matter (with the way moderation is going today it'll be All Hallows' Eve before this comment is posted) so... what would establish God's existence for you? Ball park ideas will do.

This comment is awaiting moderation. Explain.

Helio, you could try this, post a comment, head off to the Middle East on your bike and see if you can be back before it appears.

A quote from Paul's friend, Peter. "With the Lord a day is like a thousand years..."

Helio #14

Once upon a time, when unicorns roamed the earth and wolves dressed up as Grandmas, one would write a comment, post it and leave their computer (PC, mac or Linux) satisfied. There they are, one would think, my little thoughts, lighting up pixels all over the globe.

And then, "Night, the mother of fear and mystery," came upon us. "By ten o'clock the police organization, and by midday even the railway organizations, (and blogs all over the world) were losing coherency, losing shape and efficiency..."

Perhaps that's something theism can't explain.

:-)

Peter, that being the case, who has more power: God or Mod? ;-)

What would convince me of the existence of God? Good question. I can just about accept the existence of evil, but a harder problem for the theist is the existence of premoderation. How is that consistent with a loving god, or are you girls just going to blame poor old Adam again? Eh? Eh?!

Hi Helio,

One of the girls here ;-)

That's an interesting little old post right there in #21. You can just about accept the existence of evil; you mean the idea of evil and the existence of a loving God, like you can sort of hold those in tension or are you saying something else, like, perhaps, you find the idea of evil in the context of God unpalatable?

Helio, remember, there isn't a God, so there's not, to be sure; so what's there to accept?

But if you have another, sorry, an answer to the (good) question, this blonde would just love to hear it, flutter, flutter, eyelash, kiss.

P(enelope)

Helio,

I think Dawkins said something along the lines of evolution rendering God having nothing to do - it gives God his redundancy notice - having no achievements to attract our praise or worship.

For some people it might not be evolution, but other worldviews, possessions etc that do the same job: making God redundant (or replacing one 'god' with another).

Apart from the obvious, ie how can you give a non-existent thing its P45?, what I don't get (#1,7,14,21 & plenty other W&T posts) is your obsession with something that doesn't exist... it can't be good for you.

Why waste your time and energy? I don't waste my precious time and energy on blogs relating to the existence of Elvis, Lady Di & Michael Jackson living it up on some secret island off Hawaii.

Why do you care so much?

Why not take Ariane Sherine's advice? - ie 'there's probably no God... now stop worrying & enjoy your life'.

There's bound to be better ways to enjoy your life than debating with theists, Christians and creationists!

H

I think that there are two arguments from Science to support atheism.
You can take Science as confirming "atomism" - that all the large to middle size bodies in the universe are ultimately composed of "particles". The properties of these bodies (and their subsystems) can be completely explained by the fundamental particles and their interaction. This leaves God redundant. Or so the argument goes.
Of course we can ask "why should there be a universe that behaves in a law like manner? Why should there be a universe that contains particles that can form structured bodies and ordered systems? Why should there be a universe at all, for that matter?"
If God sets up and maintains the universe and its order, then he's acting in a direct, very powerful way. It's also detectable - we can make a well supported inference to a Designer. Maybe a designer would not value a universe in which he had to continually intervene. And Necessary Existence isn't a cop out if you're looking for an ultimate cause. It's a coherent concept and it's the only alternative to "stuff happens". So God may not be redundant at this level at all.
I think that this first argument can be restated in terms of likelihoods. As you've mentioned, if Science need not make mention of God, then that *obviously* supports Atheism over Theism. God *need* not leave gaps - I don't know of any argument that says that he ought to be directly intervening all the time, to create life or correct orbits. But it is equally true that there's no strong argument to say that he *ought not* intervene in the "course of nature".
So on materialistic Atheism there *can't* be gaps. On Theism there *could* be gaps. So gaps are more likely on Theism. So a lack of gaps would confirm Atheism to some extent. This argument is advanced by Paul Draper.
A key question is - how do we identify a gap? How do we know it won't be filled one day by a different kind of Science? PK would take one chance in a billion as evidence that Science would reduce consciousness to facts about Biology or Physics. That seems pretty unfalsifiable to me.
So I think the "lack of gaps" only provides weak evidence for atheism at the moment. (That may change over time, or it may not. Who knows?) And it will always need to be balanced against other considerations.

The second argument is more powerful, and is considered by Jerome Gellman. If common Religious Experiences could be shown to be the result of a (roughly speaking) "malfunctioning" nervous system, then you would have evidence that Religion is a "mistake".

On falsifying God - Theologians can have different conceptions of "God", and some of these are notoriously void of content. Theologians tend to be more interested in these than analytic philsophers. Of course you can just believe in a "vague" conception of the Divine - Eagleton's God, Wittgenstein's God. The "Ground of all Being", who "Is, but does not Exist" - all that waffle. Lots of unneccesary capital letters. I don't even know what half that junk means. You can't say anything for or against that conception of the divine. It just seems to be a matter of taste. And it isn't to my taste.
However evil and suffering certainly do count against a Theistic God - a God who is maximally powerful, knowledgeable, and good: a God worthy of worship. It's fairly easy to deduce a contradiction between the proposition that there is a PPKG God (Personal, Powerful, Knowledgeable, Good) and the fact that there is suffering. So the Theist has some work to do.
The difficulty with dropping "good" from your definition of God (or re-defining good to mean "amoral", a common Theistic cheat) is that you end up worshipping raw power. That's basically the conception of God that Hitchen's is objecting to, because it is the conception of God that Orwell objected to.
I'm as falsifiable as the next guy. And if I'm falsifiable, chances are I'm also open to confirmation.

Graham

Hello Graham,

"PK would take one chance in a billion as evidence that Science would reduce consciousness to facts about Biology or Physics."

Could you point out where I said that please? I feel you're misrepresenting me. On the lengthy god ans science thread we discussed this for a long time, but I don't recall ever putting a number on it.

I did say something like one in a billion chance was better than your case for theism explaining consciousness, as the best you could come up with in the end was the god of the gaps argument, which has zero validity.

Very sorry if I misrepresented you. The quote was -

"My position has been a rather careful one. The idea is simple. Some simple elements of our consciousness are at present rather well explained purely from physics. Where at some point that wasn't yet the case. Other parts of our consciousness are only partly explained from physics, or not at all yet. But the pattern of how we went from understanding nothing to understanding part of it bodes well for the future. If we optimistically extrapolate the picture, we might imagine a point where we understand all of it. Fully accepting that that optimistic extrapolation introduces great uncertainty for the idea. But as I've fully accepted that, many times restated that I do, I don't make any overly ambitious claims. I haven't even quantified my estimate of the likelyhood that it will work, if it's 90%, 10%, 1% or a billionth of a billionth of a billoionth. So I don't have very much territory to defend.


Bernard had problems with the phrase

"Some simple elements of our consciousness are at present rather well explained purely from physics."

You pointed out that you had rephrased and clarified

"Let me hereby correct. "It would be better to replace the first two occurrences of "of our consciousness" with "the workings of our minds", to avoid any mix-up between consciousness and what you like to see as very very separate phenomenon of conscious experience.
So when I then say "a point where we understand all of it" I mean where we understand all aspects of the mind. Ones I had mentioned, like sensory perception, arousal and storage of memories in adhesive molecules, your favourite of personal experience, and any others not yet mentioned."


So let's look at the result...

The idea is simple. Some simple elements of THE WORKINGS OF OUR MIND are at present rather well explained purely from physics. Where at some point that wasn't yet the case. Other parts of THE WORKINGS OF OUR MIND are only partly explained from physics, or not at all yet. But the pattern of how we went from understanding nothing to understanding part of it bodes well for the future. If we optimistically extrapolate the picture, we might imagine a point WHERE WE UNDERSTAND ALL ASPECTS OF THE MIND.ONES I HAD MENTIONED LIKE SENSORY PERCEPTION AROUSAL AND STORAGE OF MEMORIES IN ADHESIVE MOLECULES YOUR FAVOURITE OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND MANY OTHERS NOT YET MENTIONED... Fully accepting that that optimistic extrapolation introduces great uncertainty for the idea. But as I've fully accepted that, many times restated that I do, I don't make any overly ambitious claims. I haven't even quantified my estimate of the likelyhood that it will work, if it's 90%, 10%, 1% or a billionth of a billionth of a billoionth. So I don't have very much territory to defend."

GV

PK, if I remember right, the absolute best that you could come up with was a "science of the gaps" argument, which also has serious validity.

It is simply not good enough to say "science has no answer as yet, but I am sure it will".

Hello Bernard,

There you go like Graham. Is this misrepresentation day on W&T or something?

"PK, if I remember right,"

I don't think you remember right. Even after Graham has just quoted my position as not putting any percentage on it. I stated that I consider past progress in understanding the mind as reason for optimism about how much more we might learn.

"It is simply not good enough to say "science has no answer as yet, but I am sure it will"."

Where did I say I'm sure science would uncover all the secrets of the mind?

Graham, would it not have been easier than lengthy post 27 to just state that your presentation of my position was simply incorrect? What's the point of the many words you use?

Bernard/PK

"It is simply not good enough to say "science has no answer as yet, but I am sure it will"."
Apparently it's completely different to say that it *possibly* will, or *I'm optimistic* it will.

But if you want to start that "debate" again you're on your own.(:

It was fun as it encouraged me to read over old journal articles and notes, but all I learned was that you can't falsify a long list of ad hominems.

PK

The quotes show I didn't misrepresent you. No offence, but I don't have time to deal with your issues, whatever they are. If you think I'm misrepresenting you on purpose talk to a moderator.

GV

Graham,

I leave the moderation bits out of it, including in a case like this when what you're saying is clearly not correct. Leave the complaint button to the WWers and OTs of this world.

That seems fair.

PK;


"I don't think you remember right. Even after Graham has just quoted my position as not putting any percentage on it"

Who said anything about a percentage? In the context, your point was clearly that whatever we say about the ability of a God hypothesis to explain consciousness, your view was that science was more likely to explain it, even if it couldn't at present. You were "optimistic" that this would happen.

If that is not some kind of instance of a "gaps" argument, I'm not sure what is.

May I just say yet again that this pre-mod nonsense is killing any kind of discussion on this forum. We're now 40 minutes later, and I still can't see post #34, never mind #35

Well, if I read him wrong I read him wrong folks. Looks to me like anywhere between 90% to a billionth of a billionth of a percentile is enough of a chance to close a gap. But there you are.

I've apologised if I got him wrong, and explained how I arrived at my conclusion. After that, I think I'm within my rights to say " Now I couldn't care less."

Can science or theology get to grips with the mysteries of pre-moderation, that's what I'd like to know.

For pities sake, Bernard posted an hour ago! How do you refer the moderator?

Pre-moderation kills another discussion. Anybody listening at BBC Online? I hope Will is suitably miffed about it.

I do not take a rational approach to God so this debate is merely academic for me but it is interesting nonetheless. I was particularly interested when Will spoke about rational belief.

Belief in its broadest sense, to me, means taking a step beyond knowledge; it is a step which we all must take at some stage in order to function as thinking animals. What is interesting is what makes that step rational.

It seems pretty clear there is no nice knock-down argument for the existence of God, nothing that would convince anything other than a willing buyer. There are arguments which may make us think, which certainly open up the possibility of God, but they fall far short of proof. What then could be a appropriate basis for taking the step of belief? The only remotely rational underpinning of which I can think would be a probability calculation but how do we calculate the probability of God? That would interest me.

Some forms of probability calculations permit the introduction of expert input - what really interests me is what would constitute an expert on God. Is a theologian, for example, an expert on theology or an expert on God?

There wasn't an issue for over a year and a half.

Bernard,

While I don't go along with what you wrote in post 35, I do agree with what you said in post 36 and what John said in post 40. Pre-mod is killing the blog. It is too lousy to last, I suspect. So either it will be lifted, modified or people will go elsewhere. Let's carry on things if pre-mod is lifted or modified to make it more workable.

(51 min since Parrhasios posted 41, an it hasn't shown up yet)

This comment is awaiting moderation. Explain.

Where's my comment?All new members are pre-moderated initially, which means that there will be a short delay between when you post your comment and when it appears while one of our moderators checks it.

OK chappies (not girls this time, unless Princess and co are still with us ;-), this premod thing does tend to inflate threads and make the argument difficult to maintain.

Firstly, on Will's points re Swinburne and Plantinga, I'm afraid I don't see how either of these chaps advance the debate. We've discussed Plantinga's "repair job" on the Ontological argument before, and even Graham agrees with me that it is just another way of rephrasing a fallacy. It is a mere question-begging argument. Swinburne is perhaps a little more erudite, but still begs the question embarrassingly. One of his arguments is that consciousness cannot come from non-consciousness. Except of course it does this all the time - embryos are not conscious, and by the end of human development, they *are*, so the dualistic hypothesis which he champions has an enormous hill to climb, both from the point of view of general development, AND from neuroscience. I agree that Swinburne is perhaps the more *intelligent* of the two, but he does not appear to grasp the issues particularly well. He's also a spectacularly boring speaker, but since it is the ideas that count, I can't hold that against him.

Graham, your post deserves a fuller response - I hope you don't mind if I do a bit of quotie-wotie...

I think that there are two arguments from Science to support atheism.
You can take Science as confirming "atomism" - that all the large to middle size bodies in the universe are ultimately composed of "particles".

I would express this as: systems are composed of subsystems.

Of course we can ask "why should there be a universe that behaves in a law like manner?

Indeed. That is perhaps THE question. I maintain that theism does not explain that; or, rather, it only does so at the expense of begging the question: "why should there be a god that decides to create a universe that behaves in a law-like manner?"

There are of course arguments that universes in general have no "choice" but to behave in a law-like manner, because that is what they ARE - they are mathematical abstractions, that are "real" from the viewpoint of their subsystems. I've been recommending that folks read Max Tegmarks "Mathematical Universe Hypothesis" - no-one seems to take me up on this... :-(

But in general, your attempt to fill one gap by positing a god simply creates an even bigger gap.

And Necessary Existence isn't a cop out if you're looking for an ultimate cause. It's a coherent concept and it's the only alternative to "stuff happens".

Well, as I have pointed out, "necessary existence" is not an explanation. If anything, it is a conceptual artefact arising from a misplaced apprehension of the nature of existence itself.

As you've mentioned, if Science need not make mention of God, then that *obviously* supports Atheism over Theism.

Agreed.

So on materialistic Atheism there *can't* be gaps. On Theism there *could* be gaps. So gaps are more likely on Theism. So a lack of gaps would confirm Atheism to some extent. This argument is advanced by Paul Draper.

Ouch - and you were doing SO well! Can you see the fallacy there? Gaps are gaps *in our knowledge*, not necessarily gaps in *principle* as to the explicability of certain phenomena. The problem for the theists is that the history of scientific gap-fills is pretty darned spectacular, and I don't need to run down a list of such gaps - it's pretty obvious. Indeed, the fact that many gaps have been closed indicates that *in principle* there is no reason to assume that any particular gap contains a god-only explanation. So that's pretty lame, Graham! But even then, that only gets you as far as deism - not theism.

A key question is - how do we identify a gap? How do we know it won't be filled one day by a different kind of Science?

Well, probably not a different kind of science - same kind of science, new understanding. That's the way it works.

PK would take one chance in a billion as evidence that Science would reduce consciousness to facts about Biology or Physics. That seems pretty unfalsifiable to me.

Oh, it's a lot better than that. We already know that consciousness is an emergent phenomenal property of a system that we know consists of multiple interacting subsystems. The "gap" is more in deciding exactly what we are talking about.

If common Religious Experiences could be shown to be the result of a (roughly speaking) "malfunctioning" nervous system, then you would have evidence that Religion is a "mistake".

Who says it's a malfunction? It's representing a psychological state for sure, but why a "malfunction"? That assumes a "normal" state. Human brains and psyches are crafted by evolution, environment and experience. Religious experience could well be a universal (I know I've had 'em). But the key realisation is that these tell us about our brains - not about "reality".

On falsifying God - Theologians can have different conceptions of "God", and some of these are notoriously void of content.

No kidding.

Of course you can just believe in a "vague" conception of the Divine - Eagleton's God, Wittgenstein's God. The "Ground of all Being", who "Is, but does not Exist" - all that waffle. Lots of unneccesary capital letters. I don't even know what half that junk means. You can't say anything for or against that conception of the divine. It just seems to be a matter of taste. And it isn't to my taste.

We are more alike than you think :-)

The difficulty with dropping "good" from your definition of God (or re-defining good to mean "amoral", a common Theistic cheat) is that you end up worshipping raw power.

Exactly. It's also the CS Lewis cheat (or one of them) - who are we to know the final motives of god? God knows what's best, so a little earthquake here or genocide there or epidemic here - all part of the Master Plan. That is, as you correctly observe, nonsense. It does absolutely mean that the label "good" cannot meaningfully be applied to the god.

I'm as falsifiable as the next guy. And if I'm falsifiable, chances are I'm also open to confirmation.

I guess so - me too. I can't prove atheism, but I can show that theism is unnecessary (or, at worst, the case has not been made). That's why I approach things atheistically, with the principles of Freethought.

Will interestingly comments on Plantinga thus:
He does regard many of the available natural theological arguments as supportive, if falling short of a full proof

This is one of the stickers. The arguments from NT *are* supposed to be philosophically valid. So if they fall short of a full proof, where precisely are the problems? Are they invalid, or are the premises faulty? I would suggest that it is a combination of both. You can have a perfectly valid argument (from a philosophical standpoint) that is nevertheless poppycock if the premises are flawed, and therein lies the difficulty. He's a cherrypicker. Bottom line - we're probably only left with Swinburne.

One hour thirty minutes later --- what could Parrhasios have said?

The pre-moderator is awaiting comments.

I make it 10:49AM, and I still can't see what Parrhasios wrote at 9.12AM. This is ludicrous.
And could somebody please explain why "old-hands" are being treated as new members?


GV

Ha! this almost seems malicious now, doesn't it!

Now one hour forty minutes waiting on post 41.

Yes, can somebody explain why Parrhasios' comment is still awaiting moderation nearly two hours later?

Anybody?

2 hours and 7 minutes now for post 41 to appear. And counting.

I give up. See you when the BBC sorts itself out!

Just thought I'd point out for the first time ever, I actually agree with Parrhasios on something!

If this ghastly premod constipation ever gets shifting again...

Look, people will just go elsewhere - but no-one wants to. We like it here.

12.23, and a comment posted at 10.43 has not yet been moderated!

Just joining the queue.

2 hours to pre-mod Bernie.

H
"Gaps are gaps *in our knowledge*, not necessarily gaps in *principle* as to the explicability of certain phenomena."
Oh, certainly, I agree. It was Draper's argument, not mine. However the more gaps we close in our knowledge, the better his evidence gets that there are no gaps in principle. So I don't think he's barking up the wrong tree. It seems to be the best way of stating the "redundancy of God" argument. But that argument only seems to provide weak support for atheism.
GV

I'm tempted to say that on consciousness you're moving from correlation to necessary and sufficient for causation. But that would be to assume that people can have a discussion around here.

And *that's* begging the question.

GV

You can have an argument with premises that are true, and that is perfectly valid. However we may not be able to justify the premises to everyone's satisfaction. That does not make it irrational to accept the premises. It just means people disagree over their truth value.
So I would accept the premise that everything that exists has an explanation for it's existence. I can ofer arguments for that premise. But if someone just can't see it, I can't make them give up their disbelief in the premise on pain of irrationality.

GV

Has everyone gone?


Okay, maybe one way to handle the pre-mod’s reign of tediousness is to start several threads of discussion each. Not netiquette I know, but it will maybe keep us talking until we can have a proper conversation.
This thread mentioned “District 9” and Paul. I’m making a tenuous link here, but there is a story about another film “Paranormal Activity” that I’ve been following with interest for some time. It directly ties in to my Media and Religion classes, and I’d appreciate insights and comment.
“Paranormal Activity” was screened two years ago at the “Screamfest” in LA. It was shot by first time director, Oren Peli, for a budget of $11 000 dollars. Horror movie critics present, most of whom had experienced the “Blair Witch” hype, were, well, horrified. In the best possible sense - this is a horror movie festival. Movie critics who reported for websites and magazines with titles like “Bloody-Disgusting”, “Fangoria”, “Shock-till-you Drop” and “Fear.net” were praising the films claustrophobic and disturbing atmosphere. The film left an imprint on the psyche of many reviewers and left more than one with sleepless nights. One claimed that he was afraid to enter his house afterwards as “there might be something I can't see waiting for me.”
This is high praise from fans of gore, body horror and the aesthetics of torture. But “Paranormal Activity” (apparently) avoids all these for suspense and intimate fear. Variety and LA Weekly posted favourable reviews before the movie was snapped up for a six-figure fee by Dreamworks.

There are several aspects to this story that may interest W&T bloggers.

(i) Creativity trumps the Studios: Director Oren Peli studied animation and graphics but never film. So he shot his ghost story from the first-person subjective point-of-view. This is the same approach taken by “The Blair Witch Project” and “Cloverfield”. The pre-release buzz is that “Activity” trumps both.“Paranormal Activity” purports to be the digital footage taken by young couple experiencing a haunting. Dreamworks intended to re-shoot the entire film. But following a split from Paramount that project was put on hold. After a two year wait, fan’s of the original film put significant pressure on Dreamworks to release “Activity” unaltered. The studio decided that with a few minor edits (and possibly some work on the sound) they had a viable product for mass release. Viewers will now see “Paranormal Activity” as the director intended.
(ii) Who said Ghosts were dead? Contrast “Activity” with the Spanish horror film “Rec” which was remade in the US as “Quarantine”. “Rec” purports to be footage of a reporters encounter with demonic forces. Substantial changes were made to the plot for the US remake – specifically all mention of the supernatural was removed. Whereas the protagonists in “Rec” were trapped in an apartment block with supernaturally possessed malefactors, the reporter in “Quarantine” is trapped with victims of a rabies-type virus.
“Paranormal Activity” is unabashedly supernatural. This is a film about a demonic haunting, pure and simple. The few snippets of the story revealed on trailers are reminiscent of an MR James ghost story. An arrogant overeducated youth plays with the demonic. An invisible figure moves doors, leaves trails, and can be seen moving under bed covers (this could have been taken directly from “Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You”).
Hollywood has tended to rely on ironic parody (“Scream”) or body horror (“Hostel”) to deliver shocks rather than chills. The supernatural is required for the latter. A sociopath in a hockey mask doesn’t quite unsettle as effectively as the unseen. Remakes of Japanese horror (“The Ring”, “The Grudge”,“Dark Water”) have been profitable, but disappointing. Americans don’t share Japanese superstitions. Perhaps it would take an Israeli émigré working outside the studio system to produce an American Ghost story. The result has been compared to “The Exorcist.”
(iii) That leaves me with egg on my face. I’ve been telling my classes for several years that this sort of film just wouldn’t work anymore. “The Exorcist” panicked my parent’s generation. If any of my GCSE students have bothered to watch it (I haven’t and won’t, but that’s a different story) they have found it dull, or mildly amusing. Regurgitating film critic and philosopher Thomas Hibbs, I’ve explained that we live in an age of “cheerful nihilism”. People don’t believe in evil anymore (so the argument goes) and this allows them to laugh at the monstrous. “Exorcist” makes a head spin. “Kill Bill” fries a head for the laughs. “The Exorcist” lost its ability to shock as audiences developed stronger stomachs. It lost its ability to unsettle as audiences lost their belief in absolute Good and absolute Evil.
Or so I thought. “Paranormal Activity” delivers the goods, can only deliver the goods if audiences can conceive of a malevolent, supernatural entity hunting and destroying a young loving couple. That’s as close to an absolute evil as it gets. It’s true that audiences have to suspend disbelief, but there are set limits. As a simple example, we won’t admit storylines with too many coincidences. If “Activity” pulls in a large audience share here and across the Atlantic then maybe we’re not as nihilistic as I thought.
(iv) At the very least, if we are nihilistic, we may not be as cheerful about it as I thought. MR James said that the purpose of a good ghost story was to “chill the blood, pleasurably”. And “Activity” is said to meet that criteria. Audiences enjoy the chill. Is there something reassuring in the thought that there are undiscovered forces that cannot be trapped, contained and studied by technology? That’s a simple premise in many good ghost tales from “Frankenstein” onwards. We need villains we can almost believe in if we are to enjoy a tale. It would be revealing if slashers aren’t enough. If we want something more wild and mysterious.
This isn’t an argument about the reality of the supernatural, and it’s not an argument about nihilism’s relationship with atheism (they aren’t necessarily connected). I’m just curious about cinema audiences, given their youth. What are they after? What do they want to believe in? I’d appreciate insights etc. [I want to use this piece with an Eng Lit student reading “Frankenstein”]

I also thought that the tale of creativity trumping the studios was nice.

There’s also a discussion around Christian views of this sort of film. Will there be a picket? Should there be? I won’t watch “The Exorcist” as it contains blasphemy. But would it be consistent for a Christian to *enjoy* a film about the demonic? That’s going to come up in class discussion, and I’ve never really thought about it in any depth as I don’t like horror movies as a genre.

And I also thought that it would give the moderator an excuse to take forever to moderate a post.

Will

ref post 24

I am eternally curious that you have such a high regard for plantinga considering how he sliced and diced Judge Jone's ruling on Dover vs Kitzmiller.

ie Plantinga weighed in to the debate big time to defend the intelligent design position....

is he a fundamentalist or a respected philsopher Will....?

give us a clue??


OT

Helio

Could you please hurry up and answer the blonde's question, my heels are killing me and my mascara's beginning to run.

Although to be honest, with all this moderation, I've nearly forgotten what the question was myself.

Parrhisos

#41

There are indeed times when one must step beyond one's own knowledge and there is, I think, a way to understand that step as rational.

Obviously this is only an illustration, but, suppose a friend and I become lost one evening out a sea in a small boat. Suppose the weather conditions deteriorate, fog suddenly envelops us, the temperature drops and we are unable to find our way to shore. Very soon we have no idea where we are and we are in danger.

What are we to do?

We might, for example, discuss our circumstances, shout to one another to keep our spirits up, and then, for no reason other than whim and without any knowledge, decide to set off in a particular direction, supposing that to do something is better than nothing; it's worth taking the risk, nothing ventured, nothing gained, we might say to ourselves, and so, we might set out into the mist and darkness. This would be one kind of step beyond knowledge, belief, or a kind of faith.

However, should it happen, that after some time deliberating, and drifting, we heard a voice which said, "Hello, you cannot see me, but I know exactly where you are from your voices. I live in this area I have done so all my life. I sail these waters everyday, and know them intimately. I can assure you, you are no more than one mile from shore, and safety. Set the course I give you, we shall keep speaking with one another, and I shall lead you home."

In these circumstances we might ask some questions to confirm his identity, the veracity of his claims, a family name perhaps, or something of his navigational skills, and then, in this desperate situation, we might move beyond our own knowledge and act on his.

This too is belief, or faith, but faith of a different kind.

As Francis Schaeffer, whose example I have modified, said, of the Christian God, He is there and He is not silent.

Have the natives revolted, or are they voting with their feet?

Right - I have totally lost the thread here with this premod thing. Little brain can't cope. Thanks to OT for reminding us about Plantinga's hilarious facepalm over the Kitzmiller ruling. I think the term "epic fail" comes to mind - as it did with his review of "The God Delusion". This is part of the reason why I disagree with Will that we need to "do business" with Plantinga. He's a twit. So we're just left with Swinburne (and he's a twit too!).

Anyway, Graham, the key point is this (and again, Mr Plantinga doesn't seem to get this) - you can't add up the conclusions of a lot of duff arguments and suggest that the overall weight of these duff arguments supports their general conclusion. Yeah, we can play with the logic all we like, but at the end of the day, I want to know whether the conclusion is reliable or not - regardless of the supposed tightness of the logic. Essentially, you still need to fire up your proton accelerator and bounce a few hadrons off your hypothetical deity if you really want to say it exists.

Flick the switch!
-H

"Essentially, you still need to fire up your proton accelerator and bounce a few hadrons off your hypothetical deity if you really want to say it exists."

The Blonde wishes to know if she should understand this to be her answer.

And she's wondering if your proton accelerator is reliable or if, perhaps, you're using a nut to crack a hammer.

Anyway I'm off to touch up my roots, "Watson! The peroxide!"

Flick the hair!

Peter, wee pet, I prefer brunettes, but I can't remember what the blonde's question was...

Graham, we're not lost in the fog. We can see for miles around. We're quite happy, and entirely at ease with where we are. Your funny voices are all in your head :-)

H, my man!

The blonde is bleach, outta a tin, peroxide, remember? Nothing natural about it! But at least I got my roots sorted. (think about it!)

As for the question, it was one of those you make a habit of forgetting :-) but here we go again anyway, "what would establish God's existence for you? Ball park ideas will do." ref. post #16 and a couple of yours before it.

And, it was me who told the fog story, not Graham... now what was that about not being lost? But yes, funny voices are all in the head, I've said that before, and dealt with it on the 'Darwin on Newsnight' thread.

I'm thinking of auburn for the weekend, whatta ya say?

I thought "The Fog" was a reference to the John Carpenter Film. And I so wanted to talk about horror films and the media...

Okay, let's try this approach. Different eras have different nightmares. So giants ants and radioactive dinosaurs could sacre audiences in the 1950s, but not the 1980s. Serial killers take over in the 1980s, but have to be played for ironic effect in the 1990s. And so forth.

Now "Paranormal Activity" is being aimed at exactly the same target audience that PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris aim at. They're in their 20s and 30s, educated and internet savvy.
Furthermore, "Activity" plays on an interesting set of fears. The hero/victim is cynical. He acts as if there is no mystery that cannot be "googled", and no threat that cannot be captured by streaming media. It's this set of attitudes that puts him in danger, and creates the tension.
To create suspense, the audience must know better than the protangonists. We have to sense the threat that the characters cannot. Now there's an interesting premise for Paramount (not Dreamworks)to sell a movie on. The audience will believe in the supernatural. They will believe enough to be terrified.(Unlike "Blair Witch" this film momentarily reveals the demonic threat onscreen - there is no "out" for the audience.)
So why is it that fear of the supernatural is resurfacing in the cinema, exactly when there is significant pressure to abandon belief in the supernatural?
It's interesting that there is no Priest to confront the demonic - apparently just a comically ineffective psychic. Is this what audiences fear - that they'll discover the reality of the supernatural just when they've banished every means of dealing with it? If comparisons to "The Exorcist" are deserved - and there's every indication that they are - then this film will be discussed by the religious media for quite some time. It might be nice for W&T to get ahead of the curve.

GV

On the substantial points -

(i) You're just begging the question when you mention particle accelerators. God can't be physical by definition. If you insist he must be directly confirmable by scientific experiment, then *no* amount of evidence will convince you he exists.

(ii) "you can't add up the conclusions of a lot of duff arguments and suggest that the overall weight of these duff arguments supports their general conclusion."
That misses my point. The premises of an argument might be controversial, yet there might be very good reason for believing in them. So - "there are no non-physical realities" or "there are moral truths". Both controversial, but a lot of argument to back up both. Here's another - "Freedom is more important than duty" / "Duty is more important than freedom". You can have a justifed belief in either, but that belief is going to be controversial.
All I'm saying here is that two rational individuals can disagree about the truth of a premise, and both remain rational. We all bring background assumptions and different sets of beliefs to an argument. So we evaluate different premises differently.

(iii) Plantinga's main contribution to Philosophy of Religion has not been the Ontological Argument, or even his critique of Naturalism. Plantinga was one of the first philosophers to point out the consequences of the death of "Classical Foundationalism"(CF) for Philosophy of Religion.
CF holds that you don't know something until you have deduced it from premises that are absolutely certain. Plantinga critique is mainstream - CF is incoherent. (a) You can't deduce CF from premises that are absolutely certain. (b) It's too stringent - surely I know that the external world is real before I've proof? So many beliefs are excluded that knowledge can't get of the ground. Plantinga didn't kill CF (but he did shoot it's deputy in self defence).
So it goes beliefs like "only believe on the basis of the evidence"(on what evidence did you base that belief?) & "only believe what Science confirms" (how could science test that?). The typical PZ Myers response is "Science works". Well, whoop ti doo. That's exactly what the anti-realist is basing his argument on too. Science is pragmatically useful, but you've no *evidence* to move beyond that conclusion. You've just leapt from "useful" to "true" without any premises. They're aren't any premises available that don't beg a parcel full of questions.
Now I tend to think that I'm justified to believe things like "the external world exists", "my senses are reliable", "my concepts are adequate to examine the external world". If those beliefs are true, I have knowledge. If they're not true they're **still justified beliefs**. The lack of conclusive evidence, or substantial argument for their truth doesn't bother me.
Now apply this to Theistic arguments - to expect every rational person to be convinced of an argument's merit is too stringent. At the end of the day you can't refute a Cartesian Skeptic or a solipsist. You can give reasons and arguments, but you're not going to prove them wrong. But so long as I've reasons and arguments, I'm content.

(iv) And this is Plantinga's biggie. You don't even need reasons to reject skepticism. The reality of the external world, and the prima facie reliablity of our faculties are "Properly Basic" beliefs. You can hold them without argument, until someone supplies a good reason to reject them. *Then* you need to have an answer.

(V) He then went on to argue that belief in God is Properly Basic. (I think he made Properly Basic belief in God too easy, but he moved on to examine epistemology before he tidied up). I think you need to draw parallels with other beliefs that we can accept on face value.
Moral beliefs are a good parallel: I'm going to retain a belief that "it is objectively true that it is evil to torture the innocent for fun" until someone gives me a very good defeater. It'll have to be better tham "moral truths aren't verifiable by the scientifc method". I already believed that.
I may not be able to argue down the moral skeptic - but so what? People disagree all the time. Why should I have to persuade you before I've permission to believe something?

GV

But I'd much rather talk about societies fears. And the media. Where's John Wright? He should have something to say about the internet marketing for this movie.

I mean, here I am advertising it, and I probably won't watch it!

GV

Oh, on ID

P's article on Stanford Encylcopedia of Philosophy, and his recent lectures on Science and Religion, don't claim that evolution and theism are opposed, and seem much more conciliatory than his earlier articles in Christian Scholars Review.

He does have a Rawlsian Argument for not teaching evolution in schools - but I genuinely get the impression that this is mischievous. Some of Pennocks work on education and ID is just lazy. Plantinga seems to be having some fun with another philosopher's premises.

GV

Hi Will

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts on Plantinga and Dover.

However your response does strike me as rather compartmentalised, uncessarily verbose and (consciously?) blinkered.

As you said on the some creationists have been doctroered thread... ultimately an argument does not stand or fall on its popularity but on its quality as an argument.

Likewise, surely Plantinga's views on anything stand on the quality of the argument - not on how "respected" he is nor how "quirky" he is in some areas. Well thats the theory anyway, isnt it?

In other words, it looks like we are having a bit of a plantinga personality cult here, but not really taking him seriously in all he has to say.

I had come to virtually the same conclusions as Plantinga about Dover before I read his views and at bottom there is not a single person on this blog who has ever stood longer than 3 seconds against them.

Only one person has seriously tried, and failed very quickly. no names.

Nobody else has the guts to even acknwledge that Plantinga's gauntlet still lies at our feet.

In large part it is this. How can a scientist - or judge - determine that "supernatural" causes can be excluded from science when science cannot even define the term without putting shutters down on many potential discoveries of the future?

That is NOT to suggest tha astrology and tarot come into the physics lab on Monday. It IS to suggest we need to have a serious conversation about this though. After all the giants of the scientific revolution built modern science on foundations and assumptions diametrically opposed to those held by most today. CS Lewis concurs.

Super-natural is anything beyond the current understanding of the natural world. That could rule out Hawkings next big discovery about the cosmos (before he hastily retracts it and offers us something else without apology or explanation. again).

You would caution against hubrisitc dismissals of majory philsophical figures Will?

You have totally missed my irony.

It is W&T and SS that likes to discredit people with the "fundamentalist" label. (What does it mean anyway? Anyone who disagrees with the BBC?)

I like and respect Plantinga.

My point in labelling him as a "fundamentalist" was to emphasise that essentially with regards to intelligent design as far as most people reading this blog are concerned, and as did Judge Jones concluded, ID is just creationism dressed up for a (scientific) dinner party. Both have special creation without darwinism.


That means that as far as human origins and the existence of God are concerned, there is less difference between Ken Ham and Plantinga that between Helio's chimps and us "typing chimps" as Helio would put it.... at the DNA level anyway.

In other words W&T and SS, please dont label everyone who disagrees with you on sexuality and evolution as a fundamentalist and still propose to worship at the throne of Plantinga.

Otherwise we may have to conclude the disparity is just a subtle ad hominem argument to uphold the personality cult and discredit those who hold different views on other matters by closing down the debate using covert tactics.

Complexity is a challenge to everyone's worldview when we are faced with contradictions that dont easily compute Will, mine included.


Thanks again for your thoughts and time....

sincerely
OT

PS I have found your blog an enjoyable mind-gym in stretching me to deal with such issues Will. many thanks.

Cripes - it seems OT and I have both managed to cause a kerfuffle by planting a plant in plantinga. How to repair the damage? Well, one idea might be for us just to accept that he's a clever chappie; he made an idiot out of himself with his NYT book review of TGD; he made an idiot out of himself with his point-missing critique of the Kitzmiller judgement; he believes some *really* weird things, but maybe he's not all bad, and occasionally comes out with important things, like showing that a duff argument can be formally valid and still duff, if based on duff premises. That's fine. Meanwhile, let's get on with sorting out the important stuff. ;-)

Now, Graham, you need to do some work here:
Science is pragmatically useful, but you've no *evidence* to move beyond that conclusion. You've just leapt from "useful" to "true" without any premises.

Er, hang on a moment - who says we need to move beyond that conclusion? Why is that not good enough? Indeed, that is the whole point - we find out what works; we test it until it breaks, and find out what works better. This causes me no sweat whatsoever. When something (e.g. evolution) works very very VERY well, we call it a "fact"; we accept that it is probably "true", where "probably" refers to a very very VERY high degree of confidence. But there is ALWAYS the possibility that some new finding could overturn things, in principle. That's the way science works. However, that possibility is, in many cases, so small that it is not worth bothering about. We CAN very frequently say that some things are FALSE, because they *don't* work. Surely you should be getting this now? Having said that, Plantinga never did, and he's now an officially accredited Clever Chappie, so our hopes might be forlorn.

They're aren't any premises available that don't beg a parcel full of questions.

Which is why scientists don't worry too much about these things. Perhaps that's the reason why we have actually made progress...

Now I tend to think that I'm justified to believe things like "the external world exists"

Well, it depends what "existence" means. Hence my reference to Tegmark.

"my senses are reliable"

And it depends what is sensation and what is interpretation. How reliable your senses are wrt what they report. I think we've moved beyond that.

"my concepts are adequate to examine the external world"

Not if they are internalised. You need to build better models.

If those beliefs are true, I have knowledge. If they're not true they're **still justified beliefs**. The lack of conclusive evidence, or substantial argument for their truth doesn't bother me.

It doesn't really matter - they are *unnecessary* for the task at hand. They work very nicely day-to-day, but fail miserably at the quantum level, for instance. You need another paradigm!

The reality of the external world, and the prima facie reliablity of our faculties are "Properly Basic" beliefs. You can hold them without argument, until someone supplies a good reason to reject them. *Then* you need to have an answer.

Who says it is about rejecting? It is about determining their limits; what situations render them unfit for purpose. If we are trying to figure out what existence IS, then they cease working; we need to adopt another approach. You can't just default to what feels right.

(V) [Plantinga] then went on to argue that belief in God is Properly Basic.

Which is simply stupid. Can you briefly summarise why on earth he should think this?

I'm going to retain a belief that "it is objectively true that it is evil to torture the innocent for fun" until someone gives me a very good defeater.

That's fine. No-one is going to make the counter-argument. However, it is worth pointing out that you BELIEVE that it is the Wrong Thing To Do for other reasons than it having an attribute of "evil" - we're back to what I think I might call the Attributionalist Fallacy now. It is Wrong, not because it is Evil; we call it Evil, because it violates certain principles that we hold for several reasons. The "Evil" is not an *inherent* attribute.

Anyway, that's enough for now - I think Will is cross with me for dissing The Plant - I could get barred :-)

You see Helio, it's all very well things being useful and perhaps not worrying if they are true if we're talking about a bridge or something, basically I just want to get across in one piece, I have no particular gripe with that (although I would want to say that God sustains the bridge as much as anything else, but that's me, so ho hum!) but, you see, you finished with some thought's about Graham's comment about torturing the innocent, and really, that's where you are in a tangle, cause you're labeling because of your principles, don't you just mean more labels? The point is simple, on these terms you have no basis for telling me or anyone else what labels to write or how to define them, and if I'm stronger than you, there is no restraint. Brutal, but true.

And BTW, how to repair the damage? Yes, call him an idiot, that should do the job!

To attribute stupidity to able an man such as Plantinga is just a simple ad hominem argument - why do this?

I think the perversity of the *unbeliever* who struggle furiously - are unable to extricate themselves from the fear of God no matter what philosophy they invent.
This truth touches the very marrow of the conscience in all men.


Obviously enough, the dispute here is ultimately ontological, or theological, or metaphysical; here we see the ontological and ultimately religious roots of epistemological discussions of rationality. What you take to be rational, at least in the sense in question, depends upon your metaphysical and religious stance. It depends upon your philosophical anthropology. Your view as to what sort of creature a human being is will determine, in whole or in part, your views as to what is rational or irrational for human beings to believe; this view will determine what you take to be natural, or normal, or healthy, with respect to belief. So the dispute as to who is rational and who is irrational here can't be settled just by attending to epistemological considerations; it is fundamentally not an epistemological dispute, but an ontological or theological dispute. How can we tell what it is healthy for human beings to believe unless we know or have some idea about what sort of creature a human being is?

Jas -

Helio - I've always been one for the ol' reciprocal thing so it behoves me to acknowledge that I am in substantial agreement with much of your post # 76. It must be because I now know so much more about you and about science. ;-)

Peter - I liked your analogy with the boat. You might not be surprised that I would modify it slightly: had someone heard my cries and launched their own boat in the storm to come out and find me, then I would suggest we both stand a chance of encountering God.

Graham - post # 70. You suggest an interesting topic, one worth its own thread. Our fears are intimately bound up with our desires: we fear what we truly want. A repressed age simultaneously feared and craved the amorality of the vampire. Our materialist culture fears and yet desires the existence of the other. It is notable that that other need no longer be clearly defined it merely has to exist.

I would suggest that to understand the needs of a society a good place to start is with an exploration of its primal fears, to understand the aspirations of an individual discover his deepest dreads.

OK OK OK folks, I will be nice about Alvin, as long as people are nice about Dawkins, and cease their own ad hominem attacks. Dawkins may be passionate about his topics, but he is very rarely *wrong*, and rubbing people up the wrong way is a very well tried and tested method in getting them to pull the fluff out from between their ears.

Will, you are quite correct - Plantinga's wrong-headed (is that any better) review of TGD was in "Christianity Today", not the NYTRoB - wherever the heck I got that idea! However, I think I am going to stand by my position that Plantinga has missed the point and disappeared up some murky orifice; perhaps my terminology was a little harsh for the pet, but there is really only so much slack you can cut someone who continually misses the basics.

As I mentioned somewhere before, the thing about science and a rational approach to knowledge is NOT a reliance on our cognitive faculties; we can lift it out of our brains and treat it as a model that either works or doesn't work. One very important thing that natural selection CAN plausibly endow us, its creations, with is the ability to distinguish when something works vs the converse. In the final analysis, that's what science is all about. We don't have to hold the whole corpus in our heads at once (who can?), but we can treat it as a series of describable black boxes for further analysis (as I've gone over before).

So Plantinga, in his attempts to undermine a rational approach (or crazily interpose a theistic sine qua non as the basis for rationality) is clearly *wrong* (or at least has not made anything approaching a cogent case); whether he is wrong because natural selection has not shaped his cognitive capacities appropriately, or because he has led himself up fallacy creek, is not really the concern. An intelligent person can make a stupid argument. I'm a behaviourist, remember, not an attributionalist ;-)

Graham, maybe you can point us to some references where Plantinga says something sensible??

-H

Just an aside, before we get *too* cosy... lest anyone think that Al is the simpering widdle victim of unwarranted insults, let's remember this:

Now despite the fact that this book [The God Delusion] is mainly philosophy, Dawkins is not a philosopher (he's a biologist). Even taking this into account, however, much of the philosophy he purveys is at best jejune. You might say that some of his forays into philosophy are at best sophomoric, but that would be unfair to sophomores; the fact is (grade inflation aside), many of his arguments would receive a failing grade in a sophomore philosophy class.

Coupled with the remainder of his article (this is from the rv of TGD), describing Plantinga as an idiot is perhaps going too kindly on him. We should probably add "pompous" and "arrogant".

But like I said, we're going to be nice to little Alvin now, and allow him to play in the sandpit. It *is* a blog, and part of the duty of a blog commenter (such as me, Graham, The Peters, etc) is to inject a bit of frisson, non? We'll not *hurt* him, though.

BTW, Penelope, what would convince me there was a "god" (or at least some cosmic power to be reckoned with) would be some evidence of an arrangement of, say, nearby stars that was only explicable by them having been specifically placed in that position. For example, if it were to turn out that the stars in Orion were all of exactly the same type and the same distance from Earth, in a plane (or on a projected spherical surface, centred on Earth), I would have serious problems figuring out how that could be the result of anything other than intelligence. Or a pattern on the cosmic microwave background saying, in English: "Hi Guys!! - G-D". That would help.

Let me turn it around. What would convince YOU that the gods *didn't* exist?

Helenopolitan

So you're saying a dot to dot Jesus would do the trick, is that it?

And what would convince me there was no God, well I suppose the bones of Jesus would be a start. You don't know of any lying round Dungannon, do you?

And here, you want the message in English... but what about the Italians?

And would it have to be G-D, or would God do, I mean what are we playing at here, hangman?


But maybe you're not being serious.

:-)

Helio

It occurs to me that there was, perhaps, a bit too much frisson in my post 84, apologies. I'm not sure I follow why, for example, a particular arrangement of stars would be convincing.

Hi Petra,
Nah - I take it in the spirit it's intended; we're having fun here - I don't think blogs should be taken too seriously. The reason I'd be impressed by the stars is that there is no reason for the stars to adopt such a pattern; everything else in the universe would be perfectly OK and normal; this would stand out as a stunning anomaly, and one that would require a pretty powerful being to carry it out; whether or not it actually WAS a "god" is irrelevant - it would be as good as, from our point of view.

But we don't see that. Anywhere. Instead, we see a natural, evolving universe. We also see ourselves as complex neurobiological critters, eminently capable of making up gods at the drop of a hat. We have thousands of them. If there are n gods, and there can be at best only One True God, then the number of false gods is either n or n-1. Which means that for any arbitrary god, its probability of being a duff one is either 1 or 1-1/n. So if a god wants me to believe in it, it has some work to do to. YHWH fails.

Heloise, hi.

I have to say, you do have me intrigued on this one, and to be honest there's a few cynical comments I feel I could throw your way, not that cynicism's like me, no, not at all, and I suppose I could throw some theology at you too, but I'm happy to stick with interested in this case.

Before I ask you a question tho' your, 'YHWH fails', comment interests me too. Contrary to what some might think I've never been particularly interested trying to 'convert' anyone on this blog, I don't take the view that I can, actually; alot of my interest in being here relates to me testing my own thinking and faith, but I do get the impression at times that you keep going out of you way to insist that you're not a Christian, it's a bit like anti-evangelism. "Tonight friends, I urge you not to put your trust in Jesus! And if these are the thoughts on your heart, then maybe during the singing of our last hymn, you would just, quietly, right where you are... open your eyes.... and put your hand down." :-)

Maybe I'm wrong.

And so to my first question.

If you were to discover such a configuration of stars, or whatever, how would you respond?

By looking at other stars, and trying to figure out how it happened, of course. And seeing if there was any evidence for a civilisation that could have manufactured it, or whether it is simply due to a chance configuration.

So, suppose I come up with an ossuary from Capernaum, containing the bones of a crucified man, with "Jesus the Nazarene, son of Joseph" inscribed on it - what would YOUR approach be?

In fact, the gospels effectively give us such a picture, but I'll leave you to figure it out.

Helio

"By looking at other stars, and trying to figure out how it happened, of course."

Well I have to say I'm glad to hear that! I rather thought for a moment you were going to argue that the natural world might point beyond itself (blimey!), or worse still, for a god of the spherical gap approach.

It is odd though that on the one hand you are saying, "this would stand out as a stunning anomaly, and one that would require a pretty powerful being to carry it out" and on the other, that maybe "it is simply due to a chance configuration." It's as if you are saying that something spectacularly supernatural, something beyond your ability to comprehend or explain is what is required of 'god'. That's how it sounds anyway.

Personally I find the idea that you and I can communicate, or describe, or label such occurrences to be even more stunning. You and I, little Heliopolitan and little Peter, capable of language; that mesmerizes me. Indeed what often staggers me about the Christian story is the utter ordinariness of it all. God and nappies, and we couldn't have that, could we? God telling human beings that they were so staggeringly valuable, so breathtaking, so jaw-droppingly impressive that he would identify with them, call them to explore and investigate and celebrate the world in which they live. Of course none of this is proof of anything. (and apologies for the theology!)

As for the ossuary.... they've found that already, haven't they ;-)

OK Peter - God and nappies; that's great. God is in my keyboard! Hallelujah - how ordinary. Here I am, tapping away on a keyboard, and inside it is the creator of the universe! Glory! I know the Muslims think he's under the Return key, but actually I know he's under the space bar, because after all, he is a space pixie. That is the miraculous thing about my faith - my god is such a... er... pointless brainwarp. How can you atheists criticise such a god who deigns to come down and sit in my keyboard? Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

Can you at least see why your "answer" is a non-answer? Yes, I KNOW you have loads of excuses for why your supposedly omnipotent god leaves absolutely no traces in the physical universe. Yes, I KNOW that the themes of dozens of the world's previous religions have had to do with gods coming down to the level of the common punter, instead of reigning on high, and I KNOW you guys all think that that demonstrates how marvellous it all is, but *please* try to think like an atheist - at least for a couple of minutes - and you might catch a chink of why that response induces a facepalm. Or even try it for a week - become an atheist for just a few days. Suspend your belief. Look at things from our viewpoint.

-H

Helio

"Suspend your belief. Look at things from our viewpoint."

Oh I did that already, but 'just is' sounds too much like the mirror image of 'I Am'.

And I'm sorry you find common punters so vacuous.

Peter, I am simply pointing out that the theme of the god who is so mighty yet comes down to the level of the "common punter" is so common as to virtually be a universal in world religion. The vulnerable saviour. He who dies that we might live - it's ubiquitous, and pre-dates Christianity by millennia.

Don't you feel even a *teensy* bit embarrassed by trying to defend such a derivative and absurd theology? Don't you at least understand why anyone looking in on Christianity can see that your explanations are merely ad hoc excuses to justify what you want to believe, rather than an honest attempt to find out what is actually going on?

H

"I'm a behaviourist, remember, not an attributionalist"

You really need to clarify this statement - I think you mean something like extreme nominalism.

GV

Hi Graham, I mean we give names to things. Call it nominalism if you wish, but it's not that if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck etc that it IS a duck, it is that we CALL it a duck. Like the Spanish estar vs ser. Everything's really estar - there's no ser (not even a SuperSer heating up your draughty church hall).

Ref post 91 and post 95

I have to say, if there was any doubt before it before, I definitely find 'I Am' more appealing to 'just isn't'.

So there you aren't now.

And just for the record, the confusion of words in post 96, isn't a mistake, it just looks like one.

It *behaves* as a mistake! :-)

Peter, as we seem to have agreed, you can't derive your "I Am" from anything that we can genuinely say "is". All you seem to be left with is your position, which you support by rationalisations and hand-waving. There is no connection between the "I Am" thingy and where "We Are".

In many ways this is why I describe myself as an atheist rather than an agnostic. It is not that I KNOW there is no god; all that I *do* know is that the arguments in favour of that god are duff (vide supra), and asserting the existence of such a pixie really doesn't answer any interesting questions. In many ways, god is just *boring*.

Now I know OT will immediately start hopping up & down and ask why I come on this blog to discuss this issue with you, my good pals. The reason is simple. God doesn't exist, but you and I exist, and it intrigues me how an intelligent person like Peter Morrow (or me, prior to 1993) can a/ accept the nonsense of the apologists, and b/ accept that "belief" is an appropriate response to the unknown.

*You* are worth it :-) Not to say that OT isn't, but there's nowhere to go there. You at least have a mind that is open to the possibility (which I attach a very high probability to) that the object of your veneration isn't real. And once you realise that, it's like a Necker cube - everything starts popping into place.

Peter:

I think evidence based apologetics is impossible with Helio -presuppostional apologetics is a more biblical based system.
Although you do put forth some strong philosophical arguments it will never satisfy the skeptic - this is exactly what the word of God says and how true it is.

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the *wise* and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.

He catches the wise in their own craftiness,
and the schemes of the wily are brought to a quick end

For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,”

knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires

Jas

"as we seem to have agreed"

Helio, I know you think it looks like agreement and sounds like agreement but it isn't; one might even call it disagreement, but don't worry that's only a different label and doesn't have any substance, so we can still be friends and continue calling a duck by it's alternative name, Mr. Wiggly Worm.

But let me ignore some of your other comments and cut to the chase.

Post 98, "but you and I exist"... and you're intrigued. I'm not that intriguing, believe me. (on second thoughts, no, don't believe me... you should believe in...!)

Anyway...

Here is your dilemma, you look like you exist, I look like I exist, and sometimes we even cycle or swim like we exist but I want you to tell me how you know this.

And one more thing, you said, "you can't derive your 'I Am' from anything that we can genuinely say 'is' ”. Yes, that's right, for all the 'is' is derived from the "I Am".

Now what was that about agreement?

:-)