The Dawkins' Fallacy

[Jac3510]

So things don't have to be measurable for you to believe it, so long as there is information to point to a conclusion. The information that points to God is available. We're looking at one piece of it now. We'll look at others in the near future. You have the right to reject it, but if you are to be consistent, you will need to reject the arguments for a specific fault in their logic or for their reliance on statements you believe to be false. Out of hand dismissals don't work.

[Tank]

So things don't have to be measurable for you to believe it, so long as there is information to point to a conclusion. The information that points to God is available. We're looking at one piece of it now. We'll look at others in the near future. You have the right to reject it, but if you are to be consistent, you will need to reject the arguments for a specific fault in their logic or for their reliance on statements you believe to be false. Out of hand dismissals don't work.

Neither does an assertion that the supernatural exists, which all your points rely on.

You have yet to prove anything of any real meaning to me. I'm quite happy to read what you have to write, it is fascinating. I, however, refuse to be drawn into your minds eye in exactly the same way I don't believe the assertions of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists or atheists that can't be supported with some sort of real world information. I do not dismiss things out of hand, if I did I'd be on a forum where theists are simply picked on and forced off.

I also think that what you call information is an accountant's description of information, accurate but useless. There is no information that points to the existance of a supernatural being, if there were I wouldn't be an atheist. Millennia of superstition has bread the idea that there is such information deep into human culture and it's only since the enlightenment that humankind has begun to shed that inculcated superstition.

[Jac3510]

Neither does an assertion that the supernatural exists, which all your points rely on.

You have yet to prove anything of any real meaning to me. I'm quite happy to read what you have to write, it is fascinating. I, however, refuse to be drawn into your minds eye in exactly the same way I don't believe the assertions of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists or atheists that can't be supported with some sort of real world information. I do not dismiss things out of hand, if I did I'd be on a forum where theists are simply picked on and forced off.

I also think that what you call information is an accountant's description of information, accurate but useless. There is no information that points to the existance of a supernatural being, if there were I wouldn't be an atheist. Millennia of superstition has bread the idea that there is such information deep into human culture and it's only since the enlightenment that humankind has begun to shed that inculcated superstition.

I don't think I've said anything that relies on there being a supernatural. Would you care to elaborate?

And, by the way, the underlined statement is a bit over the top. If I said, "There is no information that points to the existence of France, if there were, I would believe in it," would you take me very seriously? Your disbelief is no evidence of a lack of information. There may be no such information, no such evidence. But your disbelief is no reason to assert that there is not. You could, after all, just be wrong.

[Tank]

Neither does an assertion that the supernatural exists, which all your points rely on.

You have yet to prove anything of any real meaning to me. I'm quite happy to read what you have to write, it is fascinating. I, however, refuse to be drawn into your minds eye in exactly the same way I don't believe the assertions of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists or atheists that can't be supported with some sort of real world information. I do not dismiss things out of hand, if I did I'd be on a forum where theists are simply picked on and forced off.

I also think that what you call information is an accountant's description of information, accurate but useless. There is no information that points to the existance of a supernatural being, if there were I wouldn't be an atheist. Millennia of superstition has bread the idea that there is such information deep into human culture and it's only since the enlightenment that humankind has begun to shed that inculcated superstition.

I don't think I've said anything that relies on there being a supernatural. Would you care to elaborate?

And, by the way, the underlined statement is a bit over the top. If I said, "There is no information that points to the existence of France, if there were, I would believe in it," would you take me very seriously? Your disbelief is no evidence of a lack of information. There may be no such information, no such evidence. But your disbelief is no reason to assert that there is not. You could, after all, just be wrong.

God has to be supernatural as any God worthy of the name can defy his own laws thus He is supernatural. You claim God exists so by definition you believe in the supernatural.

I could be wrong but as yet nobody who has claimed that God exists has been able to provide evidence that could not be explained in a simpler fashion. In the past theists have repeatedly made up supernatural reasons for things they didn't really understand. Disease being caused by daemons and possession being just one example. Assuming you reject the 'daemon theory of disease' then you reject the errors made by superstitious humanity. To paraphrase Dawkins 'I just go one superstition further.'

And I stand by my statement there is no information that points to the existance of God, I realise it is a very bold statement. I am a sceptic, decades in sales, purchasing and other areas has tuned my 'sales pitch' detectors to a high degree and Ned, Edward and yourself all send those detectors off the scale. That doesn't mean I won't listen to your pitch with interest and attention, it just means I can see it for what it is.

You just don't have the right stuff to convince me. But I'll keep reading, if only out of morbid curiosity and the hope that I'll find a gem of illumination.  

[epepke]

Existence is one such effect. I'll make a new post later today that argues rationality is another. We'll continue down this line.

I haven't seen you defend the proposition that existence is an effect.

We should note here that everything in this universe is an effect.

I will note that this is false, and we've known that it's false for about 90 years now, which is enough time for word to have gotten around.

[humblesmurph]

Existence is one such effect. I'll make a new post later today that argues rationality is another. We'll continue down this line.

I haven't seen you defend the proposition that existence is an effect.

We should note here that everything in this universe is an effect.

I will note that this is false, and we've known that it's false for about 90 years now, which is enough time for word to have gotten around.

What in the universe is not an effect?

[epepke]

Existence is one such effect. I'll make a new post later today that argues rationality is another. We'll continue down this line.

I haven't seen you defend the proposition that existence is an effect.

We should note here that everything in this universe is an effect.

I will note that this is false, and we've known that it's false for about 90 years now, which is enough time for word to have gotten around.

What in the universe is not an effect?

Let's see.  The vacuum fluctuation is the most clear, as there isn't any matter there to cause it.  Spontaneous radioisotope decay.  Decay of positronium.  Measurements of entangled pairs of photons.

Some of these things cannot follow rules of causality, because if they did, then they would violate Special Relativity, which is hugely supported.

Now, it so happens that, especially when quantum numbers are large (as in the macroscopic world), the classical approximations work well, because a lot of things average out.  Sometimes it's also useful at the particle scale.  However, it is never 100%.  In many cases, it is so close that you could run an experiment for the age of the universe without getting a contradiction, which is probably good enough.

[meta]

Dawkin's first fault was arguing against religion from the perspective of only orthodox Christianity (and orthodoxy generally in the Abrahamic religions).  Brahman, the supreme Being of Hinduism, who/which encompasses the whole universe would be exempt from his arguments and conclusions.  His arguments have no negative effect on religions of praxis rather than dogma/doctrines.

The second fault is anthropomorphism, which cannot be applied to an unknowable God, i.e. unknown in human thinking and language, but really known through effects that produce religious praxis.  The words evolution, nature, causality, and anything that applies to physical reality by definition do not apply to deity.  But consciousness is not physical, and can be applied to deity.  The only problem with that is lack of evidence, and that's pretty important.  But could be!

Richard.

[hackenslash]

I just thought I'd point out that this:

Lots of things aren't science (by which I assume you mean hard science like physics) that we know to be true. History is but one example.

Is as wrong as a wrong thing on wrong juice. History is science, albeit a specific form of it. It is empirical in nature, because it rests on the persistence of evidence, from which hypotheses are drawn to be tested against the revelation of future evidence. It refines and revises its models of the past based on those revelations.

This doesn't support the argument of the poster. Further, the contention that 'being' constitutes evidence for any sort of deity is simply laughable, and I would expect better from this poster, much as I loathe his particular brand of pseudophilosophical sleight-of-hand.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Dawkin's first fault was arguing against religion from the perspective of only orthodox Christianity (and orthodoxy generally in the Abrahamic religions).  Brahman, the supreme Being of Hinduism, who/which encompasses the whole universe would be exempt from his arguments and conclusions.  His arguments have no negative effect on religions of praxis rather than dogma/doctrines.

Given that he was writing for, generally speaking, a Western audience, this is an understandable presumption on his part.

The second fault is anthropomorphism, which cannot be applied to an unknowable God, i.e. unknown in human thinking and language, but really known through effects that produce religious praxis.  The words evolution, nature, causality, and anything that applies to physical reality by definition do not apply to deity.  But consciousness is not physical, and can be applied to deity.  The only problem with that is lack of evidence, and that's pretty important.  But could be!

If a god is unknowable, that what use is any religious text?  What use is any pondering of this god-thing at all?

[ablprop]

But consciousness is not physical, and can be applied to deity.

Sorry, but I can't let that go. Why do you think so? The only examples of consciousness we've ever seen are associated with lumps of physical stuff called brains.

[meta]

God as unknowable comes from Eastern philosophy/religion and Christian and Sufi mystics.  Supposedly God is known only through his/her/its effects in the human mind, or perhaps for some the world also.

Consciousness as pervasive and ubiquitous in the universe is a philosophy such as with David Chalmers, a Naturalist who argues for that.  The evidence comes from extrapolation, a method not foreign to science. For myself I don't buy that, but I do understand, as believed in cognitive science, that consciousness while being the result of brain processing is more than that, and it is based on first-person experience versus third-hand description.

That's a heavy subject: consciousness.  Perhaps we need to discuss this in another forum, or here if you wish.

Richard.

[ablprop]

That's a heavy subject: consciousness.  Perhaps we need to discuss this in another forum, or here if you wish.

Yeah, except I don't see how you're going to get anywhere with me. Without hard evidence, I don't see how I could move away from my current stance that consciousness, while fascinating and deeply mysterious, probably doesn't include any new physics. It's probably electromagnetic in origin, and the laws of electromagnetism are pretty well understood on a fundamental level.

I've been reading more and more about these incredible brain scanning technologies (MEG and the SQUIDS) that allow researchers to sense thoughts. More and more the evidence shows what of course had to be true all along - thoughts are real things, physical events in the brain. Consciousness doesn't feel like a chemical reaction, but I think that's the default position until there's hard evidence to the contrary.

[PoopShoot]

Funny how we understand computation to be a physical thing based on electromagnetic interaction between circuits, but we can't seem to grasp that consciousness is the same basic thing with neurons instead of circuits.

[ablprop]

If and when consciousness emerges from a computer, I think that will answer a lot of questions, in the same way that a single example of life with a separate origin will answer lots of questions about life.