Should we work to get rid of Christianity?

[Electric Skeptic]

No, among Christians that accept the infallible authority of Gods Word, there is agreement on the essential moral teachings of God and his word.

There are any number of disagreements on the essential moral teachings of God and his word. Christians the world over have disagreed for millenia and today can't agree on the morality of things like abortion, homosexuality, same-sex marriage...

But since we cant read minds and know motivation, we determine selfishness by behavior. You know it when you see it.

No, we can interpret behaviour and from that interpretation, calculate selfishness. Sometimes we are wrong, and behaviour that we think indicates selfishness does not. Because selfishness is not defined by act, but by motivation

I notice you didnt or were unable to answer my question. Why? Because you know it proves my point?

No, we dont' have to remind children not to share their toys. I don't underestand why you think this proves your point.

God has told us it is sin plus our moral conscious does as well ie, most people agree that acting selfish is wrong.

You believe God has told us it is a sin. Most people agree that being selfish in some situations is, to some degree, wrong. It is far too sweeping to say that selfishness is wrong.

No, taking things out of context can make any book contradictory.

That simply doesn't fly. It's easy, when presented with one of innumerable contradictions, to scream "Context!" That, however, doesn't matter in the slightest unless/until it can be shown that context makes the contradiction mean something other than what it appears to mean. Christians invariably fail at that point.

So if someone in your family needs help and its a day you dont feel like it, you dont help them?

I do not understand what that has to do with what you were responding to (which is that love is an emotion).

Yes, you can, the essential moral laws of God are obvious in His Word. All you have to know is how to read things in context like any other book.

But they're not obvious. If they were obvious, the world's billions of Christians wouldn't have spent the last couple of thousand years disagreeing with each other about them.

No, most everything in the second tablet of the Ten Commandments people feel guilty about if they commit the act. Such as most people feel guilty if they murder, lie, commit adultery, or steal. This is evidence that our moral conscience is a reflection of the moral law of God.

No, it's not. Firstly, people feel guilt about all manner of things - including ridiculous things to be guilty about. Eating too much. Eating too little. Not loving their parents. Not loving their children. Giving a Christmas present that didn't cost enough. Or that cost too much. Guilt is just another human emotion which we often feel irrationally.

Secondly, the fact that the second table of the ten commandments describes some actions that some people feel guilty about some of the time in no way shows either that (a) those commandments come from any god or (b) that our moral conscience is a reflection of those commandments. They could as easily have been composed by noting which behaviours tend to produce guilt and writing them down.

Provide one post where I have not.

You've not shown it in any post. You might well have tried, but in none of your posts have you shown that the Christian god "most likely does exist".

No, millions of people for 2000 years have agreed with my interpretation,

Which doesn't change the fact that it's your interpretation - one with which millions of people disagree with.

and many of the authors are known

No, they're not.

and there is evidence that the book has a divine origin.

If there is, neither you nor anybody else has been able to present such evidence.

No, scientists have to study the effect and the event to determine which is which. Good scientists cannot just assume something has a cause, it has to show characteristics that demonstrate whether it is an effect or an event. And the universe has all the characteristics of an effect. Just because you claim you cannot tell the difference does not mean others cannot.

Again, what are the characteristics that show something to be an effect, rather than event? You were unable to answer this last time I asked.

I never claimed that we know for certain it had a beginning, just that so far all the evidence points that way and the evidence grows every year that it did have a beginning.

Yet you've failed to provide the slightest evidence that it had a beginning.

A non contingent thing would not have a beginning and would not change.

Says who? Don't just state it; show it.

It is different, and you have failed to prove otherwise. I have demonstrated it.

No, you haven't. Again, you've claimed it. That does not equate to demonstrating it.

Basically It is true by definition, intelligibility, is the characteristic of something that is made to be able to be comprehended by a mind, Only minds can make something that is comprehensible by other minds.

That is completely unsupported.

America has the most freedom

Could you cite something to support that? Because of all the metrics used to determine freedom, of all of the examinations and tallies, I've never seen America come out even close to being the most free nation in the world. See here, here, here and here - in none of them is America even close to the top.

most upward economic mobility,

Again, could you provide some support for that? I couldn't find much online, but the most relevant site, here, shows the US in 27th.

best medical care,

This one is pretty laughable. Virtually everybody - even Trump - admits that the US' medical care is terrible. Ridiculous drug prices, terrible health care plans...on every measurable metric, the US is a long way down on this scale.

Unless, of course, you mean that it has the best 'top tier' medical care. That is, it has the best medical care for the richest, those who can afford to pay for it. In that case I'd agree, but I'd question whether that is a good thing or not.

best universities

Granted but, again, I'd question whether that is a good thing in isolation. Does it matter how good your universities are if only a fraction of the population can ever get into them? The US' university loans problem is known throughout the world and speaks very badly of the US' education system as a whole.

and etc. though we are starting to lose some of these things.

What is the 'etc'?

So you are denying that there are laws of physics? I think most scientists would disagree with you.

Then sorry, but you think wrongly. Scientists know that they are not laws at all (in the sense of edicts of how behaviour must go); they are just descriptions we have put on observed behaviour.

 

[El Cid]

Fallacious equivocation between two senses of the word "law":

1. the system of rules which a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and which it may enforce by the imposition of penalties.
...
3. a statement of fact, deduced from observation, to the effect that a particular natural or scientific phenomenon always occurs if certain conditions are present.

Just because "Sense 1" laws are created by minds, it doesn't follow that "Sense 3" laws are.

Well Einstein saw a similarity, and he is considered the most intelligent person who ever lived.

 

[El Cid]

Who said they came from? If your God can be self-existent then so can the universe.

Uhhh we were talking about the laws of logic, not the universe. But theoretically the laws of logic could be self existent. But regarding the universe, the evidence says otherwise as I have explained earlier.

The universe meets the definition of event but not of effect.

Not according to Websters and Aristotle.

You said you weren't making an inductive argument, yet here you do exactly that. I already explained the problems with induction from observed causes and effects to the beginning of the universe which is radically different from anything observed, both in temporal properties and in the type of causation it would require.

I am primarily making an abductive argument. But the universe's beginning is not radically different from other things with beginnings as I demontrated earlier in this thread.

Of course there is dispute. My point was that it is far from obvious that computers (or merely physical brains) cannot attribute meaning or logically reason. Human minds/brains are limited by their physical architecture just as are computers. The only difference is where that architecture came from. There are already certain reasoning tasks purely physical computers can do better and faster than humans.

No, there is evidence that the human mind is not physical so it is not as limited by its physical architecture as computers are. And the only reason they are faster and better in certain logic tasks is because they specifically programmed and designed to solve a specific problem. The human mind is designed for relationships not to solve logical problems.

 

[Tetsugaku]

Uhhh we were talking about the laws of logic, not the universe. But theoretically the laws of logic could be self existent. But regarding the universe, the evidence says otherwise as I have explained earlier.

Yes, my mistake. I should have said that the laws of logic need not have 'come from' any more than your God did. But you are wrong about the universe. We have no evidence that it must have 'come from' or have been caused either.

Not according to Websters and Aristotle.

This remains unsupported. The dictionary definitions make it clear that having a cause is the difference between an event and an effect, and you have not shown that the universe meets the latter definition. You also haven't presented anything of substance from Aristotle, who never presented any law of logic requiring everything to be caused.

I am primarily making an abductive argument. But the universe's beginning is not radically different from other things with beginnings as I demontrated earlier in this thread.

Do you understand the difference between induction and abduction? You just made an explicitly inductive argument. The universe's beginning (if it had one) is radically different, in that it may have been the beginning of time, rather than a mere beginning within time. A consequence of this is that it would require a radically different kind of causation, if any cause is to be possible here at all. All observed beginnings involve causes acting from prior moments in time, and this is why induction doesn't work here. If you have a different abductive argument to make then please present it.

No, there is evidence that the human mind is not physical so it is not as limited by its physical architecture as computers are. And the only reason they are faster and better in certain logic tasks is because they specifically programmed and designed to solve a specific problem. The human mind is designed for relationships not to solve logical problems.

I'm afraid there is no evidence to suggest that minds are any less constrained by their physical architecture than are computers. The human mind has evolved to solve social problems rather than logical ones, which explains the results of the Wason Selection task, among other things. Human minds cannot go beyond what evolution has designed them to do, any more than computers can go beyond what human designers have programmed them to do. You're not really showing any significant difference here that would justify saying that only humans can reason.

 

[Eightcrackers]

Well Einstein saw a similarity, and he is considered the most intelligent person who ever lived.

An appeal-to-authority fallacy.

Argument from authority - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Eightcrackers]

No, there is evidence that the human mind is not physical

What evidence?

Do we know of a mind that is not associated with a brain?

 

[El Cid]

The crucial characteristic distinguishing an effect from an event is having a cause, and you haven't shown that for the universe. You're again making an inductive argument, and I've explained why that doesn't work.

No, I am making an inductive argument for a cause to the universe and an abductive argument for the cause being the Christian God. The cause is not part of the effect so it cannot be an intrinsic characteristic. Intrinisic characteristics of an effect are that it has a beginning or is changing.

This still runs afoul of the limits on legitimate induction. Here's the problem. You want to say that every event we've observed within the universe has had a cause, and that the universe therefore probably has one as well. But I can equally well say - that is, with equal inductive support - say that every observed case of causation has involved a cause situated at a prior moment in time (within the same temporal dimension), which would mean that the universe itself would not have a cause. Both inductive arguments therefore cancel each other out, leaving us no inductive grounds upon which to think that the universe must be caused.

No, I have demonstrated from science that there very well may be another dimension of time besides the one we experience. Also, since the laws of logic are not contingent, as you said, causality may not even require time to occur.

It's not common sense at all, but rather a bad assumption built on a failure to appreciate modal distinctions. It is reasonable to wonder whether contingent laws of nature might differ in space, but not at all reasonable to doubt whether the necessary laws of logic might fail. By definition they cannot ever fail to hold. That's what it means to be a law of logic.

Well there are many scientists even today that dont believe that the laws of logic apply at the quantum level of existence. So there very well could have been ancient scientists that also did not believe as you do, such as Hindu scientists. There are Hindu scientists today that dont believe that contradictions are real.

 

[Tetsugaku]

No, I am making an inductive argument for a cause to the universe and an abductive argument for the cause being the Christian God. The cause is not part of the effect so it cannot be an intrinsic characteristic. Intrinisic characteristics of an effect are that it has a beginning or is changing.

I've explained why you can't use induction to show that the universe was caused. There's just as much inductive grounds for saying that all causes require prior time as there is for saying that all beginnings require a cause, so these two arguments cancel each other out, leaving you with no inductive basis for insisting upon a cause. And I said that having a cause is the defining characteristic of an effect, not that it is an intrinsic one.

No, I have demonstrated from science that there very well may be another dimension of time besides the one we experience. Also, since the laws of logic are not contingent, as you said, causality may not even require time to occur.

I've explained to you why another dimension of time doesn't save your inductive argument - requiring an entirely different kind of causation from anything ever before observed undermines the inference from observed cases. And I don't see any connection at all between the necessity of logic and the alleged atemporality of causation - causation is not a law of logic.

Well there are many scientists even today that dont believe that the laws of logic apply at the quantum level of existence. So there very well could have been ancient scientists that also did not believe as you do, such as Hindu scientists. There are Hindu scientists today that dont believe that contradictions are real.

Contradictions cannot be true because the laws of logic do apply. I don't know which Hindu scientists you are referring to, but if they think that QM violates logic then they are mistaken. No-one thought logic might fail in space. You made that up. Just admit the mistake and move on.

 

[El Cid]

What is adaptive depends upon the environment and ecological niche in which a species finds itself. Humans have evolved into the ecological niche of general intelligence, where truth recognition and logical reasoning is indirectly selected for on account of its contribution to fitness.

General intelligence is not an ecological niche. Ecological niches are environmentally based. And you are assuming what we are trying to prove. Since natural selection only selects for survivability and not true belief, then humans would probably never arise.

Having a cause is the defining characteristic of an effect, distinguishing it from a mere event.

No, an effect has multiple defining characteristics mostly having a beginning or changing.

Yes, by definition. But there are many criteria and factors that go into abductively determining which explanation is best. For more detail, see the thread I started in the Evo/Creo forum.

Yes, and there are many things observed in the universe where a Personal creator is the simplest and most rational explanation.

So prove it. Show us the abductive inference, specifying the criteria by which this inference is justified. Whenever I've pressed you on this you end up making an inductive argument instead.

We see that there are personal beings, that there are laws of physics and logic, that love exists, and language exists in this universe. All these are best and simplest explained by a Triune personal creator.

 

[Tetsugaku]

General intelligence is not an ecological niche. Ecological niches are environmentally based. And you are assuming what we are trying to prove. Since natural selection only selects for survivability and not true belief, then humans would probably never arise.

Again NS selects indirectly for true belief through the adaptive advantage of belief-forming mechanisms that tend towards truth. General intelligence is very much an ecological niche, whether environmentally-based or not. Humans evolved in the direction of bigger brains, favouring general intelligence at the cost of higher energy consumption.

No, an effect has multiple defining characteristics mostly having a beginning or changing.

As per the dictionary definitions already posted, having a cause is THE DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC of an effect, distinguishing it from a mere event. Regardless of whether or not it has a beginning and/or changes, if it doesn't have a cause it isn't an effect.

Yes, and there are many things observed in the universe where a Personal creator is the simplest and most rational explanation.

We see that there are personal beings, that there are laws of physics and logic, that love exists, and language exists in this universe. All these are best and simplest explained by a Triune personal creator.

You're again just claiming an abductive argument without actually presenting one. Please SHOW that a personal creator (triune or not) is the best explanation for any of these things, with reference to the specific IBE criteria you are using to make this judgement. It is certainly false for logic, which cannot be the product of a personal creator being without thereby ceasing to be necessarily true.

 

[El Cid]

No, some species are better at survival than others,

And how is this determined?
When the worse ones go extinct.

A species of one hundred cannot be said to be "better at surviving" than a species of one hundred million because we don't know what's going to happen in the future - what if conditions change - suddenly or gradually - to disfavour the larger species?

If a species lasts 350 million years like cockroaches, I think that qualifies as pretty successful from an evolutionary perspective, dont you think?

 

[Electric Skeptic]

Uhhh we were talking about the laws of logic, not the universe. But theoretically the laws of logic could be self existent. But regarding the universe, the evidence says otherwise as I have explained earlier.

Not according to Websters and Aristotle.

I am primarily making an abductive argument. But the universe's beginning is not radically different from other things with beginnings as I demontrated earlier in this thread.

No, there is evidence that the human mind is not physical

You are very fond of claiming that there is evidence for things...and then never providing that evidence. So far you've claimed that there is evidence that:
- the universe was caused
- the Christian God exists
- that the human mind is not physical.

Yet you've not produced any evidence to go with any of those claims.

 

[El Cid]

No. He is hidden to us. Where is the God who walked with us in the garden and spoke with us conversationally? The one that wrestled with Jacob? he one that spoke directly to Noah and showed him what to do and why in no uncertain terms? Who spoke in the burning bush and personally handed the law to man? Who held the hand of Abraham from Isaac? Who showed the Pharaoh and Ahab in contest who had the better god?

That God, the Christian God, is most certainly hidden from this era. No one needed to analyze anything carefully when He was gaining His canonical definition. The God of the canon no longer exists, if he ever did at all. It takes so little analysis to figure that out. But I agree that it does take much careful analysis to apologize for the absence and somehow make it work for continued belief against those odds.

Well you seem to be referring to how often He intervenes supernaturally, yes there are certain important periods where He has intervened a little more than other times. But overall 99.9% of the time He operates thru natural law. Otherwise, it would start affecting our free will and evil could not be destroyed forever which is His primary goal. But His existence is fairly obvious if you think about the existence of the universe and its characteristics and causality. In some ways science has made Him less "hidden". 60 years ago it was thought the universe was eternal and therefore didnt need a cause, but the BB theory has shown us that the universe is an effect and therefore needs a cause.

 

[El Cid]

We don't know enough to be able to say the universe is contingent, and space and time are turning out to be rather strange and counterintuitive to us, and you're claiming this based on a general principle within the universe that doesn't necessarily apply to the universe as a whole.

We just don't know enough.

The universe has enough of the characteristics of effects within the universe to make the rational assumption that the universe itself has a cause. And actually the evidence is growing as the evidence confirming the Big Bang grows.

 

[El Cid]

I didnt say they were contingent in an ultimate sense. It is not that obvious given that the most successful organisms at surviving cannot reason at all. Knowing that 2 plus 2 equals 4 does not increase survivability and neither does knowing that evolutionary theory is true. If natural selection is actually the mechanism for evolution then life would have never advanced beyond cockroaches or maybe rats and cats. So saying that because humans exist means natural selection can select for truth recognition, is assuming what we are trying to prove.

But having the ability to reason which enables us to recognise this, does.

No, again you are assuming what we are trying to prove. Natural selection does not select for the ability to reason abstractly. Being able to recognize 2+2=4 does not increase survivability so it would not be selected for. And as I demonstrated above some of the most successful organisms like the cockroach do not have anywhere near that ability. So evolution would have never produced humans if it is based on natural selection.

 

[Electric Skeptic]

The universe has enough of the characteristics of effects within the universe to make the rational assumption that the universe itself has a cause.

You've still failed to provide any evidence at all to support this claim. What characteristics of the universe would be different if it were an event (i.e., uncaused), rather than an effect, and why?

And actually the evidence is growing as the evidence confirming the Big Bang grows.

How? First, what is this evidence you claim exists? Secondly, how does evidence in favour of teh Big Bang indicate that the universe is caused?

 

[Electric Skeptic]

No, again you are assuming what we are trying to prove. Natural selection does not select for the ability to reason abstractly. Being able to recognize 2+2=4 does not increase survivability so it would not be selected for. And as I demonstrated above some of the most successful organisms like the cockroach do not have anywhere near that ability. So evolution would have never produced humans if it is based on natural selection.

Sorry, but that is not correct. You assume that every feature an organism has has been selected for - but that is not correct. I have read a number of discussions of why humanity evolved our intellectual capacity - the capacity that allows us to reason that 2+2=4 - and the most popular hypothesis seems to be that many of our mental abilities were selected for not because of their survival advantage, but rather because they came along with something else that was selected for because of its survival advantage. The idea is that we evolved our intelligence primarily to deal with the social aspect of existence and dealing with other humans. As we evolved this, due to their intelligence, we needed to be more intelligent still to deal with them, so we evolved more intelligence still, and so forth. That our intelligence is useful for what you call abstract reasoning is a 'spandrel' which comes with the increased intelligence which was selected for so that we could better deal with other humans.

Not to mention, of course, that you have not demonstrated that abstract reasoning does not increase survivability.

 

[El Cid]

Then you agree that selfishness is not a behaviour, but informs - and can be decuded from - behaviour.

It is a motivation that produces a certain behavior. But as we were talking about babies and children whose motivations cannot be articulated and are generally very simplistic unlike adults, then the behavior becomes much more obvious that the motivation is selfishness.

Why not the other way around?
The Bible writers came up with a list of actions that make people feel guilty, and just gave Yahweh the credit for putting the guilt in us...

No, the fact that the laws of almost all successful societies in history are basically the same as the second tablet of the Ten Commandments shows that these are certain universal principles that are intrinsic to the human moral conscience and therefore could not have been made up by humans.

 

[Eightcrackers]

No, the fact that the laws of almost all successful societies in history are basically the same as the second tablet of the Ten Commandments shows that these are certain universal principles that are intrinsic to the human moral conscience and therefore could not have been made up by humans.

I'm not saying that humans made up the pricinples.
I'm saying that they merely attributed the principles to a god, with poor justification.

 

[Tetsugaku]

The universe has enough of the characteristics of effects within the universe to make the rational assumption that the universe itself has a cause.

The defining characteristic of an effect is having a cause, so to judge the universe to be an effect you must first show it to have had a cause. We have no experience of universe-beginnings by which to judge that they must be effects rather than uncaused events. And we have no experience at all of causes that do not act from some prior moment in the same dimension of time as the effect.