the ignotist and Occam arguments

[skeptic griggs]

The ignostist argument is that the term God has no meaning, the  uninformative tautology that God wills what He wills and "hides our ignorance behind a theological fig leaf."It is a  non-explanation. But for the sake of argument,granting meaning to the term, the Occamic argument uses Occam's razor to state that it would require more assumptions - ad hoc ones- than natural explanations, which thus, are sufficient for explanation.Thus, we find natural selection does not depend on God to work and miracles are just natural phenomena- remissions and frauds.God is thus not required as an explanation,even in metaphysics.   :!:

[Will]

This reminds me of the Ontological argument and Plantinga's messed up axoims. In the end, it's still all apologist back pedaling and falls flat when faced with reason.

[skeptic griggs]

Willravel, thanks. That ontological argument is one I find just a play on words.How about Platinga's warrant for God that He is a basic belief?

[Will]

I'm sure the poor guy means well but his misapplied brilliance, and I do believe that he is a brilliant man, always boils down to apologism for the acceptance of miracles and also (my favorite) the attempt to brand god as 'perfect', when the term perfect, even in a philosophical sense, is still completely subjective. To the idea that god is a basic belief, I'd say that it's still all based on false assumptions and a presupposed existence of god. It's easy to formulate a theory around god when you presuppose his/her/it's existence.

http://www.leaderu.com/truth/3truth06.html this link has an interview with Plantinga, and it becomes evident very early on that his works are about proving faith and the immaterial (which is by definition unprovable).

[skeptic griggs]

That is what I surmized. He use pareidolia. I see no god working in nature whatsoever.Occam's razor shows that.

[skeptic griggs]

Theistic evolution is a mere oxymoron. Teleology contradicts natural selection, not complements it"putting the the future into the past,the effect before the cause,.. negat[ing] time."" End states are consequences[causalism-natural events]not foregone conclusions[ teleology] of beginning states," Teleology is backward causation. To obviate the contradiction, theists propose a two category classification of origins[science] or contingency and creation[theology] or necessary being, but that begs the question of the second category. This was supposed to be a new thread and if possible Iwould like it to be so, moderator.

[Scrybe]

Ok mr. skeptic pants.  Let me be skeptical for a moment.

the Occamic argument uses Occam's razor

I've seen this so called razor flailed around as a club far too often.  What leads you to believe that the simplest explanation is always the right one?    

to state that it would require more assumptions - ad hoc ones-

Can you list them to confirm this statement, or are you just assuming?  And how do you define "ad hoc"?   Seems like quite a loaded term hiding a bunch of bias and assumptions.      

than natural explanations, which thus, are sufficient for explanation.

Well this depends on your definition of natural.  And also your definition of sufficient.  That is a very subjective argument.  Not very scientific at all.        

Thus, we find natural selection does not depend on God to work and miracles are just natural phenomena- remissions and frauds.

How can you make any such findings without observing the entire process?          

God is thus not required as an explanation,even in metaphysics.

What happened to Occam?

[skeptic griggs]

I stand with my remarks. It would take many assumtions to make       God a part of any explanation. It isn't merely the simplest but the one that does not require more evidence itself as God certainy does.I state that either God is no explanation or iff he is unnecessary.We don't need a personal explanation that explains only on the basis of let their be light.I don't have to see the whole process. Scientists have enough experience with nature to show that. We do no go to Thor to give a personal explanation for the weather, nor should we go to God for any explanations.I use what is available to start an argument with.

[pjkeeley]

I thought this was supposed to be the 'laid back lounge'? My brain hurts.

[Will]

This is nothing. I once got in a 4 hour debate with an ontological fundy about some stupidly deep philosophy. By the end he was so frustrated I thought he was going to take a swing at me. I'll admit there is a bit of intellectual vanity to it, but I'd like to think that guy went home and reconsidered his position.

[SteveS]

It would take many assumtions to make God a part of any explanation. It isn't merely the simplest but the one that does not require more evidence itself as God certainy does.I state that either God is no explanation or iff he is unnecessary.

Exactly correct, IMHO.  This is an observation that is probably at the heart of much atheism!  I'm sort of paraphrasing this below, but I agree so strongly that I'd like to share how I read the argument.

Scrybe, Occam's razor is used to eliminate unnecessary assumptions.  That's all.  It's not just saying the simplest explanation for something is correct, it's getting you to trim off everything that is not needed for an explanation (imagine what would happen to pork barrel politics if congress employed the razor when making laws, hahaha!).  

I think the point being made is that if you use god as an explanation for something, the only way to do so is to make all sorts of assumptions about god --- none of the assumptions we end up making are actually backed up by anything factual.  So, we end up throwing heaps of assumptions into the pot by invoking god, and end up with either no real explanation or one that has a lot of superfluous baggage that we don't really need (i.e. divinely directed evolution - evolution has no need of divine direction to function as we observe).

One more thing,

It's easy to formulate a theory around god when you presuppose his/her/it's existence.

This was a very lucid point.  Kudos!

[McQ]

Ok mr. skeptic pants.  Let me be skeptical for a moment.

the Occamic argument uses Occam's razor

I've seen this so called razor flailed around as a club far too often.  What leads you to believe that the simplest explanation is always the right one?

That's not what Occam's Razor says. That is a mis-characterization of it.   O.R. deals with making as few assumptions as possible when dealing with any phenomenon, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions. It gets paraphrased as "All things being equal, the  simplest solutions tend to be the correct ones. Not always. Don't misconstrue it.    

than natural explanations, which thus, are sufficient for explanation.

Well this depends on your definition of natural.  And also your definition of sufficient.  That is a very subjective argument.  Not very scientific at all.

This is easy enough to define. Why dicker over it? Just define what is meant. And trying to blur the definition of "sufficient" doesn't strengthen your position. Sufficient is also easily definable, mathematically, statistically, and logically. So do it.

Thus, we find natural selection does not depend on God to work and miracles are just natural phenomena- remissions and frauds.

How can you make any such findings without observing the entire process?

This may be the weakest point I've seen you make, Scrybe. It's surprising, as I've been enjoying your posts.

There is no need to observe "Entire Processes" to form hypotheses, make predictions, or craft theories. Darwin is the perfect example. He didn't even know what processes were driving his theory. Much of those processes weren't discovered until within the last 30 -60 years. Yet his theory is sound and it accurately predicted things he couldn't directly observe.

Careful on that one.          

 

[Scrybe]

I stand with my remarks. It would take many assumtions to make God a part of any explanation.

Ok.  But doesn't it take just as many or more to make God not a part of any explanation?  What elegantly simple answer do you have to explain the something-from-nothing origin of time and space?  Are you going to use Occam to just cut the question away, claiming that it doesn't matter?  That's one solution I suppose.  Ignoring a problem is always the simplest way to deal with it.  (At least for a while.)

It isn't merely the simplest but the one that does not require more evidence
itself as God certainy does.

You are limiting the kinds of evidence that you will accept.  Since you will not consider evidence that exists outside of the material universe there is no further point to this argument.  Now THAT is simple!  

I state that either God is no explanation or iff he is unnecessary.We don't need a personal explanation that explains only on the basis of let their be light.I don't have to see the whole process. Scientists have enough experience with nature to show that.

ORLY?  So we have finally come to that point in history where science is 100% proven fact?  Every scientific theory is absolutely true?  We have enough experience now to know everything.  Nice.  I hope there are no disagreements between scientists or that may ruin your complete reliance on their data.    

We do no go to Thor to give a personal explanation for the weather, nor should we go to God for any explanations.I use what is available to start an argument with.

Fair enough.  And I'm not advocating "going to God" for explanations.  We can and should investigate our reality with all the zest and perseverance possible.  We should find all the physical explanations for every physical phenomenon.  We should strive to understand our universe as well as we can.  The problem, and the distinction between an atheistic and a theistic approach to this pursuit of knowledge, is that the atheistic approach limits itself to only certain kinds of knowledge, and will only accept answers that fall within it's range of acceptable criteria.  This limiting factor is what will ultimately hold science back once we breach the (I believe) inevitable threshold between physics and metaphysics.  I think rejecting certain kinds of knowledge a priori due to a philosophical bent is a less fruitful approach to apprehending the reality we apparently exist in.    

I thought this was supposed to be the 'laid back lounge'? My brain hurts.

Yes, I think the original poster may have started this thread in the wrong place.    

This is nothing. I once got in a 4 hour debate with an ontological fundy about some stupidly deep philosophy. By the end he was so frustrated I thought he was going to take a swing at me.

See, I don't understand why people get so bent out of shape about this sort of thing.  If having your beliefs challenged makes you angry I think that's a pretty good clue that you have more than the pursuit of truth riding on you current position.  That's a good time to evaluate yourself and assess what is really important to you and why.        

It's not just saying the simplest explanation for something is correct, it's getting you to trim off everything that is not needed for an explanation

You phrased this perfectly.  It shows exactly what I'm getting at.  "You trim off everything that is not needed for an explanation."   But of course what you consider necessary is different that what someone else might consider necessary.  Therefore the user's philosophy makes Occam's razor completely malleable, allowing them to cut any which way they please.  (After all, the guy it was named after was a Christian using it in the theological arena, right?)  If undirected evolutionary process created us, then God is not necessary, according to the razor.  (But only because we have shoved the origin of time/space/matter/energy in the closet.)  But if God created us from nothing, (not actually what I believe) than the evolutionary process is unnecessary.   Which is simpler?  Infinite God speaks us into being instantly…. Or billions of years of random mutations building complex life forms?  I don't know.  All things being equal….    

if you use god as an explanation for something, the only way to do so is to make all sorts of assumptions about god

 More assumptions than we make about the origin of everything?  One can make all sorts of assumptions about God.  That is what religion and philosophy do.  But if there are two proposals for a thing, and one involves an act of God, the other a natural process, there are three options.  1. Accept that God did it.  2. Accept that it is natural.  3. Accept that God works through natural processes.  (After all, if He is the creator, He's the one who designed the processes, right?)  I think one problem we have is that you guys are picturing a theist's solution to anything as some sort of flash-bang miracle with special effects and maybe an echoy voice booming from the heavens.  You compare that mental image with a rational, scientifically deduced proposal and the choice is simple.  But that ignores the third option which is the one that makes the most sense to me.  An author makes his characters do stuff by writing it down.  A director makes his characters do stuff by directing them.  A Creator makes His characters do stuff by the rules He created at the beginning of time.  He made planets work by physical laws.  He made weather work by physical laws.  He made animal bodies work by physical laws.  But the real beauty of this option is that it keeps the door open to other workings that exist outside of physics.  The palate of colors to choose from when painting a picture of this reality is much wider when you aren't constrained to the sullen colors of materialism.  

We wouldn't explain every phenomenon with a metaphysical explanation.  And it makes no more sense to explain every phenomenon with a physical explanation.  (Even if it makes us feel better and smarter, and more capable and in control.)                            

That's not what Occam's Razor says. That is a mis-characterization of it. O.R. deals with making as few assumptions as possible when dealing with any phenomenon, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions. It gets paraphrased as "All things being equal, the simplest solutions tend to be the correct ones. Not always. Don't misconstrue it.

You are correct.  I was responding to the way it was being used, not the way it is best used.  Don't forget there is a step required to accept that Occam's razor is true.  Beyond that, there is a step in ignoring your biases and using it poorly in a philosophical debate.  I believe this is what skeptic did.    

This is easy enough to define. Why dicker over it? Just define what is meant. And trying to blur the definition of "sufficient" doesn't strengthen your position. Sufficient is also easily definable, mathematically, statistically, and logically. So do it.  

But it's not that simple.  It's all in the context and its application.  A kiss on the cheek is sufficient to let your wife know you like her.  It's not sufficient if you intend to make a baby.  The atheist position that evolution is a sufficient explanation for us is based on a host of assumptions.  The biggest one being that we have inferred a process we have never observed.  I agree that the evidence is strong that an evolutionary process has occurred.  But it is a big assumption to state that it was not directed or designed in any way.  (Though it's not an assumption at all if you automatically discount the possibility of anything existing outside of the physical universe.  That pushes the assumption back a few steps, thereby handily creating an argument that you can never lose.)  

So when the OP states that a process is "sufficient", you better damn well be sure I'm going to dicker over what he means by it.  And what should be meant by it.  And what his meaning uncovers about his a priori assumptions.  

How can you make any such findings without observing the entire process?

This may be the weakest point I've seen you make, Scrybe. It's surprising, as I've been enjoying your posts.

  Hahaha!  Sorry to let you down.  But in my defense, I never claimed to be the sharpest knife in the drawer.  And yeah, I was also not on the top of my game when I posted that.  (I think I was in a hurry to get home.)  

There is no need to observe "Entire Processes" to form hypotheses, make predictions, or craft theories. Darwin is the perfect example. He didn't even know what processes were driving his theory. Much of those processes weren't discovered until within the last 30 -60 years. Yet his theory is sound and it accurately predicted things he couldn't directly observe.
 

I agree with all of this.  And I have no intention of dissing Darwin.  He was a genius, and some of this predictions were uncanny.  I'm also not dissing the theory of evolution.  It's a great theory with most of the scientific community backing it.  

My comment was not meant in the way it came across.  My point is that you guys are assuming that if an evolutionary process occurred, there was no need for a design.  You can not possibly know that unless you observe it.  Even if you observe it, you would have to discover some mechanism for detecting "random".  If you've read the freewill thread you can see that I don't see a way for freewill or randomness to exist.

So since you can't observe evolution, and you can't prove that it's random, it is an unproven theory that no direction was necessary.  Therefore using Occam's razor to cut the idea as unnecessary is inappropriate.

[Will]

See, I don't understand why people get so bent out of shape about this sort of thing.  If having your beliefs challenged makes you angry I think that's a pretty good clue that you have more than the pursuit of truth riding on you current position.  That's a good time to evaluate yourself and assess what is really important to you and why.

Well that's one simple difference between theists and atheists that I often see. It's frustrating to have your special place in the universe challenged, especially when you can't mount a reasonable case. The Onthological argument is a very strong attempt to defend a very weak point, and a theist that hears it really wears it like armor. When that armor is cut like cheese (no, I didn't fart), it's disarming. It's disconcerting. Some theists are very good at self evaluation, but that's always in the prison cell of theism...so it only works so well. It's only when you're able to evaluate the prison cell itself that you can come close to clarity.

Okay, now I farted. [schild=11 fontcolor=000000 shadowcolor=C0C0C0 shieldshadow=1]Pardon me.[/schild]

[SteveS]

What elegantly simple answer do you have to explain the something-from-nothing origin of time and space?

How can you be sure there ever was a nothing?  Why is the idea that once there was nothing, then there was a universe, not an assumption?  Well, then we ask, if there was nothing and then a universe because god created it, then why isn't it logical to suppose there was nothing "before" there was a god?  As Carl Sagan says in Cosmos, most culture presume that a god or gods created the cosmos.  The next logical question is where  did god come from?  If the answer is "we could never know how god came to exist", then why not skip a step and say "we could never know how the universe came to exist".  If the answer is "god has always existed", why not skip a step and say "the universe has always existed".  This last point is at least true in the sense that since time seems to have started with the big bang, then for all time the universe has existed.

But of course what you consider necessary is different that what someone else might consider necessary.

This feels Bill Clinton-esque to me - like it depends on what you mean by necessary?  Necessary for practical explanation, predictive power, emotional appeal, ... ?  I don't know how to answer this one --- sorry.

But only because we have shoved the origin of time/space/matter/energy in the closet.

Or, only because we have assumed that time/space/matter/energy had an "origin" in the conventional sense.

Which is simpler? Infinite God speaks us into being instantly…. Or billions of years of random mutations building complex life forms? I don't know. All things being equal….

Billions of years takes it.  Why?  Because billions is a whole lot less than infinity (in fact, it's infinitely less).  How do you find the concept of an infinite god "simpler" than billions of years of mutations?  What could be more complex than something infinite?  You could never even describe it completely, because you can't enumerate infinite.  And what the heck is "speaks us into being".  At least we know how mutations work.  How does "speaking into being" function?  How did you judge that "speaking into being" is less complex than mutation?

I want to make clear in the above that I'm not using "simpler is better" as Occam's razor.  I'm responding to the question of "which is simpler, all things being equal".

Hopefully this illustrates what I meant about assumptions about god.

More assumptions than we make about the origin of everything? One can make all sorts of assumptions about God.

Okay.  My assumption about the origin of everything is that it is unexplained and that it is hard to reasonably guess what caused the "origin" of everything, if there even is a cause.  Do you honestly find this a larger assumption than "God exists, and did it for some divine purpose"?  Why isn't it possible that there was no origin?  That things just are?  I'm not necessarily arguing that, just trying to point out that the idea that existence had an "origin" is possibly only a human concept (or prejudice) that might not even make sense.

You seem emphatic that one can make all sorts of assumptions about god, well then by the same logic why can't we make assumptions about anything?  Like, say, the origin of time/space/matter energy?  Why is god free to endless speculation, but everyone else has to play by the rules?  I'm sorry if this isn't what you meant, but it's sure how it comes across to me.

1. Accept that God did it. 2. Accept that it is natural. 3. Accept that God works through natural processes.

Scrybe, I certainly understand your line of thought.  I hope I don't come across as so dense as to not get this.  A little bit of density is inevitable, I guess  :?  .

A Creator makes His characters do stuff by the rules He created at the beginning of time.

...and the rest of this thought...
This position is similar (I say similar, I'm not trying to paint you in a box) with deism.  God wound her up and let her go.  You really can't disprove this position.  The problem to me is you can't really prove it either.  I guess the reasons for feeling one way or another are more telling then the likelihood that either position is true.  Me, I don't get the attraction of this thought.  Whether god created the laws of nature or not, they work the same.  I just accept that they are the way they are, the way the number "pi" is.  Maybe there weren't any options.  If god made the laws, well, this doesn't help me understand why things work on a practical level.  You will argue that it may help on a different level, maybe an emotional level.  But, honestly, it doesn't to me.  Oh well - I'm not going around trying to convert anybody to atheism.  Emotionally, I guess we all have to find the way that works best for each of us, on our own.

Even if it makes us feel better and smarter, and more capable and in control.

Better?  Happier for sure, happier is better, right?  Smarter?  In some ways (especially compared to fundies) yes.  Capable?  Sure.  In control?  Doubtful  :wink:  .

So since you can't observe evolution, and you can't prove that it's random, it is an unproven theory that no direction was necessary.

But, evolution has been observed.  We know an awful lot about how it functions, and we've seen it function.  Unless you mean abiogenesis (which is actually distinct from evolution).  But why isn't it fair to simply retort with "did you observe god create the cosmos?".