All good! Not a theist here, but I have come to really admire Professor Plantinga, not only for his intelligence, but also his ability to bring some class and tact to arguments around theism. He really is a brilliant, soft spoken man who deserves respect.
I had a life changing experience of my son getting Gealed as in icu. Then I saw God heal my son a 2nd time at home in seconds as I read Malachi 4. So I met Him & saw Him work the impossible. He has continued thru my whole to show up with more & more miracles. He shows up & shows off all the time …. I can’t deny He exists. He keeps showing up & fixing my life when I mess up. He’s amazing!!!
I once an agnostic semi Christian myself, it was science both biology and cosmology they brought me to my final faith, particularly the last few years, when the most recent discoveries in cosmology suggested a designed universe, and rather that accept that as possible logic, the atheist community goes into complete denial of the cosmological tuning, and have ran to the multiverse as there hail Mary so to speak. Unfortunately for them all the evidence points to a start time, even in a multiverse.
@@GeoCoppens I’m a Christian, care to discuss the problems with eternal inflation and how that ties into the kalam, or am I too dumb bc I’m a Christian
@@gabepearson6104 No idea what you are talking about! Eternal inflation? Kalam? You must have been brainwashed into religious belief, just like Alvin Plantinga. There is simply no empirical evidence for any God. Apologists are bending over backwards but....Zero result!
@@GeoCoppens After much thought I’ve come to the conclusion that God is simply the best explanation, so why not work off of the best explanation rather than assume an alternative lesser explanation or no explanation. I also conclude that there are no absolute truths under the Naturalistic world view, and I think it’s more rational to operate under a world view that concludes there are truths than one that assumes there are not.
Well I came to this video because I was intrigued by this man's philosophy and you are right he didn't dwell deeply into any argument for God's existence and creation. I do believe that he just took a simplistic honest answer that's at the forefront of his beliefs for God. That he is able to recognize that which surrounds him as a clear testament for the existence of God. I understand how this might be difficult for you to understand but the perspective changes dramatically when you accept Jesus
I happen to agree with Mr. Plantinga:My question is don't people crave things that actually exist?1. If a man is thirsty in the desert, does he not crave water? Of course he does.2. If a person works all day and then comes home is he or she craving food? Of course.3. If you had an asthma attack, would you not crave air? Of course.4. What is it that all these things have in common? Water, food, and air all exist.5. Humans only crave things that exist.6. Billions of people crave God's loving guidance in their lives.7. Therefore, God exists.
+MrFredw81 When the movie 'Avatar' came out, lots of movie-goers wanted to go and live on Pandora. That doesn't make it real. www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/6977817/Avatar-fans-suicidal-because-planet-Pandora-is-not-real.html
+needinput His point is you're body can't crave something that it's never had an experience with. The idea being, where did humans come up with the idea of a creator, after all we are just monkeys and like any other animal. No other animal has to come up with reasons for there existence so what put the idea of God in the human imagination in the first place. At some point there had to be some sort of experience. The people you talk about never wanted to live in Pandora prior to experiencing it visually on the movies screen. And the creator of Pandora had to have some experience with a utopia like Pandora in order to make his movie, but where was the original experience, what or where or from whom did it come. Where did the original idea of God come from? There would have been no precedent for it and as I said, no other animal has to make up reasons for its existence and the way things work. So why did we humans, if we are just animals have to find a reason for our existence? The original thought had to come from somewhere, which means the idea had to exist in some form, but what, how, and from whom?
+Josh Dub No, you're muddling things. MrFredw81 did _not_ say that humans only crave things they've "experienced" (whether on a movie screen or otherwise). He said something more specific: that humans only crave things that EXIST. That was the point I refuted with an example of humans craving something that doesn't. As for your question about where the original idea of God came from, that's something no-one can be sure of - but you came up with a likely reason yourself: "human imagination". Why not? That's the source of all kinds of ideas, like ghosts and dragons, and also Pandora, according to James Cameron himself: www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/read-james-camerons-sworn-declaration-avatar-399979
please recognise i am not trying to be prejorative, im respecting the fact that you approcahed the discussion intellectually and am responding accordingly, that elevates you in my eyes compared to most of the atheists i have had to discuss with on the net
I love this fellow but one point, this knowledge and he knows this, this knowledge of God is in the person instilled by God,,every person has in his makeup a knowledge of God but this has been suppressed, by sin in man. When a man becomes a believer and has his mind renewed this sense of the divine is restored. Calvin knew and taught this and this is so very true.
@girtkaz senses do give a distorted view of reality, but the mere fact that we can think this thought goes to show that as human beings we far surpass the limitations of our senses. You just proved my point.
@Mentat1231 What you have to do in order to persuade me of your leanings to rationalism is what kind of statement can you make that is not dependent on sensory experience or the way our cognitive faculties relate to that stimuli.
we should regard human happiness as a good and human suffering as something bad in the first place. This is a separate question, so I won't debate it here. But it is a challenge for all of us to argue in favour of objective moral values and duties. Kant undertook this project in earnest and gave us a fascinating, if not entirely persuasive, account.
It's sort of hard not to laugh when the great philosopher's main reason for believing in a god is "it just seems to me right". As a point of comparison, imagine if someone said, "My reason for believing in unicorns and leprechauns is that it just seems to me right".
Lil Scotchy you have probably read lots of philosophy, and you see how he compares knowledge of God with knowledge of other minds, as well as knowledge of past events. Epistemologically there is no difference between such types of knowledge
Another thing you might consider is, if our sense were unreliable, how would we communicate in order to say catch a mammoth? If one person thought they were running away from the mammoth and the other towards it, the hunt would be a bit confused would it not? Communication makes it essential that we share an accurate representation of the world, when it matters. Of course it doesn't matter in the least to our genes, which particular god one worships, which is why there are so many religions.
BS alert. A belief (any belief) has a 50-50 chance of being correct? Right. Sure it does. Just because there are 2 choices, correct or incorrect, does not mean each choice has a 50% chance of being true.
@Cryo With the lotto, you either win or lose but with completely different odds, that we have foreknowledge of, compared to the limited knowledge we have to work off of when considering the afterlife. There either IS an after life or there is not.
A number of people with videos discussing religion mention it to me. I notice it myself when watching videos. It's anecdotal so far, but given the large sample size I wouldn't be surprised if further research confirmed it. About atheist hatred, I'm interested in discussions about God and atheism. But I find most atheist critiques, particularly on the internet to be inept and overreliant on emotion. I'm looking for intelligent atheist channels on youtube. Can you recommend some?
... so his best answer to the question: Why do you believe in God? is: "It seems to me that God is real..." Then he calls the arguments against God's existence 'weak'? LOL!!!
A great philosopher can be a theist or a non theist. Being a theist in no way mean that one cannot be a great philosopher or a philosopher. If this is the case, we would have to say that most great philosophers before the 19th century i.e. from Plato to Kant, are not really great philosophers (or even philosophers) since most of them are theists. Also, given that most post 19th century philosophers tend to be non theists, they somehow have an inherent advantage to be greater philosophers.
dubunking You have hit the nail on the head. To drive the nail all the way home all one needs to do is label his argument as an ad hominem fallasy. He is attempting to discredit an argument based on the background of the person presenting argument. Would he run out of a building if Hitler yelled "FIRE!" ?
TheGreaser9273 Absolutely. Unfortunately, many hold that view and I have to say that many (not all) atheists despite their claim to be open minded, evidence based, are in fact dogmatic. What is more, they think the theists are dogmatic. Double illusion I am afraid. You will see that I have debated with Rex below and lo and behold, he would not change his mind although he grudgingly accepted many of my points but he always slipped back into his old dogma and comfort zone in the end. Dogma dies hard.
How is saying that one's cognitive faculties are there merely, within the materialistic paradigm, to get bodies in the right place at the right time. There is no reason to assume that the process of DNA propogation as a telos in total would produce particle assemblies that can do good philosophy. Superior philosphical thinking in no way follows logically from Atheism.
"It just seems to me to be right" I thought this guy was a professional philosopher? That's not a rational reason at all to believe in something. I'd have at least respected him if he'd have cited the ontological argument or something.
Well f it. I guess no one who has a degree in philosophy should be allowed to express original insight or personal perspective eh?! According to your comment, it's completely irrational to come to a conclusion based on personal experience/evidence, right?
Evolution doesn't care about true belief? True belief isn't selected for along with false positives? Hmmmm when I want to cross the street, and I see on coming traffic I usually don't jump out in front of it.
Of course you don't, because that's a behavior that helps you survive, but when it comes to academics and doing formal proofs (like math or logic problems), naturalism gives us no assurance that our faculties can be trusted. In fact, we have to be suspicious because it's likely that we've been evolved to believe useful ideas instead of true ones. That was his point.
Obviously we wouldn't believe something if we knew it was false. But I could give you plenty of examples of useful beliefs that people once thought were true. The point is that if naturalism is true, then our minds are made for usefulness, not for apprehending truth.
Stop avoiding my question, give me a single species that holds useful false beliefs. And second i would argue in naturalism that usefulness and truth in a state of nature go hand in hand.
@Tobytrim Well the bible is also not a singular book, it's a library of many different books; some meant to be taken more literally and some are poetic, metaphorical and allegorical. Philosophers back then loved writing in allegory, many were also poets and writers; so would write stories and poetry that were also philosophical arguments. One thing to keep in mind is that as a Christian, Christ is our main guide in reading scripture.
This is nowhere nearly the entire argument. This is a popular level snapshot. There is nothing in this, "Taking Credit for skepticism and empiricism." His argument is an one from probability. Thanks for posting, Rip
I've watched his lectures and he misrepresents naturalism. As far as evolution goes, he's right natural selection doesn't care about anything. Either a creature reproduces or it doesn't. Then he says in this video that if you believe in naturalism you can't trust your senses, yeah that's a meaningless platitude, we've all read David Hume, Rene Descartes, Kant, Locke, etc. then he says if you believe in god you can trust your senses. Which is one a non sequitur, and two a massive leap. Platingas work is pretty much regulated to theology, and he's not taken serious outside of that.
+dakota demaris He is saying given naturalism and evolution you cannot trust your cognitive faculties since the probability is low for truth content. This is what we should expect from the Darwinian mechanism since the only input is survival. If one believes in a purposeful Creator then evolution would be for more than just survival. Things such as aesthetic and abstract thinking entities who can understand the concept of truth wouldn't be unexpected. Alvin Plantinga is taken seriously. I read many atheist philosophers and you will find him in footnotes or the bibliography. Also It's really frustrating when you lay atheists think you are experts at philosophy only by watching RU-vid videos. You said he misrepresents naturalism. Really? I never heard a high ranking atheist philosopher accuse him of misrepresenting naturalism when they critique him. Naturalism is easy to understand.
As hominems are such an unbecoming jab. Especially for one who uses correct grammar and knows how to spell words. I'm at work so when I get home I'll deal properly with Platinga's argument. By the way I'm a philosophy undergrad.
dakota demaris Read his paper here: www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/virtual_library/articles/plantinga_alvin/naturalism_defeated.pdf Just represent what he says accurately regardless of whether you agree or not.
akgoodness yo I should 'read the bible" I have read the bible. That's what got me questioning my religious indoctrination. The bible is a very foul collection of iron age myths. I suggest you read it. Not just having your minister tell you want he wants you to believe.
akgoodness yo Are you serious? I think the reverse question is more relevant: What makes you think the bible is NOT a bunch of myths? Every story in there is a ridiculous attempt by some bronze age "thinker" to explain some natural process, or to rationalize some terrible laws. The fact that it is ancient is irrelevant. The myths of the ancient egyptians are much older than the jewish stories. Does that make Set and Ra even more real than Jehovah? And the fact that it's precious to people - that has nothing to do with whether or not it's real. Star Wars is precious to a lot of people (HAN SHOT FIRST!) That doesn't mean it's real.
Seriously what makes you think the bible is any less believable than any past events ? you cannot prove events that are in history and furthermore his justification to why he believes does not need to be an affirmation to you, so stop criticizing other people's justification in believeing and focus on the reasons you don't.
OccamKant You didn't take one second to look into the long history of serious academic study on the bible, and compare it with studies of egyptian writings, and yet you think you have something to say.
I understand completely how science works, and why it works the way it does (this is the realm of Philosophy of Science, and I have read extensively on it). The simple fact is that science presupposes that our cognitive faculties (like memory, basic mathematical intuition, etc) are reliable. Otherwise no experiment would yield anything.
Re: _"Evolution doesn't care about true belief."_ - This guy is a "professor"? Sorry, "Professor", but if the frog believes the fly is within its reach when that isn't true, the frog doesn't eat. And the frog that doesn't eat, doesn't survive. So that frog had certainly better adapt its beliefs in the direction of truth, or it will cease to survive. And if it is average for its species, it's species will cease to survive. We can explore this at various levels of belief. If the frog believes he will die from eating the fly, and the belief is untrue, then the frog doesn't eat, and the frog dies. If the frog believes that if he doesn't eat the fly, he will receive a larger dragonfly in return, the frog will not eat the fly, will not receive the dragonfly, and will die. If the frog believes that by not eating, he will retain calories otherwise wasted through the act of capturing, swallowing and digesting the fly, the frog will not eat the fly, and will die as a result of not eating. So most certainly, evolution requires adaptation in the direction of truth, because false beliefs are detrimental to one's existence. In some ways, it's unfortunate for humans that we have so isolated ourselves from the challenges of our environment. Otherwise, compare the survival rates between the theist who sits near starvation on a rock, praying for food, verses the atheist who goes actively in search of something to eat. Consider the theist who prays for relief from a plague, verses the atheist who seeks an effective medication or vaccine. One of man's greatest achievements is the advent of science, which is essentially a methodology for filtering out most of man's subjective ideas, leaving only objective truth. And through these objective truths we have created effective medicines, surgical techniques, communications systems, environmental control systems, and all of the modern conveniences which allow you so much extra time to read, to learn, to think and to, unfortunately, revert back to what I must honestly say, are some of the silliest and worst arguments yet to be suggested in support of theism.
the frog could believe any number of things and still capture the fly because evolution cares not about true belief but only adaptive behavior. perhaps the frog thinks the fly wants to have a party in his stomach and he captures the fly, or he thinks that he should capture the fly for God will be angry with him if he does not, or perhaps he believes he should capture the fly or the fly will turn into a bird and eat him. Indeed we know that in fact he should eat the fly because it will keep him alive and that this would be a true belief to have but we cant make this assumption if materialism if true, which plantinga thinks that it is not. Now you might panic and suggest that perhaps in a single case a false belief can be adaptive but one cannot survive if he incorporates many false beliefs into his worldview. However, this too is inherently wrong. Suppose that there is a tribe of humans in the Serengeti 2 million years ago, all the members of this tribe hold the false belief that everything in their environment is a witch. So when they see a lion they think its a bad witch and they must run away or it will cast evil spells on them, or when they see a zebra they think that they should kill the witch because it is a good witch and will bring them good luck if they eat it or they see a flowing river and they think that the stream is a collection of baby witches and by consuming these baby witches they will grow stronger. All these beliefs are false but all these beliefs are still adaptive because these beliefs will allow them to survive. now, WE know whether or not these beliefs are true and we attest that lions,zebras and rivers are not witches but we cant make this assumption that we know these beliefs are false in the case that materialism is true. And of course it is fallacious reasoning to suggest that materialism is true because we know by assuming that materialism is false that these beliefs are false. obviously................ I am unsure as to whether or not the above explanation made sense to you because based on your original comment it is safe to say that you are not a very intelligent person but i hope it was at least helpful.
Uwot Mate Re: _"Indeed we know that in fact he should eat the fly"_ - And why do we know that? Because understanding the workings and interplay of the natural world helps us to survive. Did it help people to survive to believe that evil spirits were causing diseases? Does it help people to survive to believe that diseases are caused by microbes and viruses? No one is claiming that every belief will directly relate to one's survival rate; but it is most certainly true that holding true beliefs is more beneficial to survival than holding false beliefs. To attempt to argue otherwise suggests ignorance and/or desperation in the face of the evidence for evolution. -- Re: _"one cannot survive if he incorporates many false beliefs into his worldview"_ - Which coldly refutes Professor Plantinga. -- Re: _"based on your original comment it is safe to say that you are not a very intelligent person"_ - Well, assuming perhaps you were directing your comments to me, I'm at least intelligent enough to know how to include references in my comments, so that no one has to guess to whom they are directed. And if you want to engage me in a battle of wits, you'll have to sharpen you skills quite significantly.
Beastt17 "And why do we know that?" ----We know that precisely because naturalism is false!. You cannot assume that your cognitive faculties are reliable and then state that naturalism is true because it produced cognitive faculties which are reliable. Your argument is circular, the question is "what if naturalism were true? what then could we say about the reliability of our cognitive faculties?". Please stop making elementary fallacious arguments if you want to be taken seriously. "it is most certainly true that holding true beliefs is more beneficial to survival than holding false beliefs." ------------There is no reason to state that true beliefs are better fitted for survival than false beliefs for reasons that even a degenerate ape could understand by now. Think about the following two scenarios, Scenario 1: Frog sees fly, thinks 7+5=12, neurobiological mechanisms direct him to catch the fly. Scenario 2: Frog sees fly, thinks the fly will keep him alive, neurobiological mechanisms direct him to catch the fly. In which scenario is the frog more likely to survive? If you believe in evolution then neither is any more likely because both produce an equally beneficial behavior. Furthermore, this argument is not one against evolution but against naturalism. Your blind and dogmatic adherence to this metaphysical worldview has caused you to frantically grasp at any straw you can to defend it, even if a widely accepted scientific theory such as evolution needs to be discarded. "Which coldly refutes Professor Plantinga." ---Thanks for overtly displaying your own intellectual dishonesty be quoting one line in my comment and then boldly asserting that the proposition (which was not even my own proposition but rather a proposition that i anticipated you would make) clearly refuted plantingas argument. Did you not read the clear example i gave immediately after that quote? Did you merely skim my comment in order to distort what i had said so that you could claim victory then run for the hills? (How critical minded of you) "I'm at least intelligent enough to know how to include references in my comments, so that no one has to guess to whom they are directed." ---------If you are the author of the original comment in the discussion then any comment in the discussion that is not directly addressed to another individual as indiciated by the (+Name) is directed at you. That is how Google+ was built Einstein.
Re; _"There is no reason to state that true beliefs are better fitted for survival than false beliefs for reasons that even a degenerate ape could understand by now."_ - Your stupidity is utterly amazing. If you think you can go through life holding the belief that you can fly safely from high cliff tops and buildings, that nothing you could possibly ingest could ever be harmful to you, that your body is immune to any effects of being struck by high-speed traffic, that everyone on the planet is as concerned about you as you are, that electricity can't be conducted by stainless flatware through a toaster's heating element, and that rattlesnakes and cobras all wish to be cuddled in your lap, it will *most definitely* have a detrimental impact on your odds of survival. However, if you believe that some things you could ingest might kill you, that you lack the ability to fly without mechanical assistance, that your body can sustain irreparable harm inconsistent with survival from impacts with high-speed traffic, that many people on this planet have absolutely no concern for your welfare, that inserting a fork into an operating toaster is a step away from electrically arresting the contractions of your heart, and that rattlesnakes and cobras not only possess potentially lethal venom, but also a delivery system and a dislike for being handled, it will most certainly present benefits for your continued survival. And don't try to dodge away from that as you have with your silly and fallacious examples with the frog, wherein you use only beliefs which are unrelated to the activities of a frog. Of course a frog is not impacted by incorrect beliefs regarding mathematical equivalencies. But that doesn't mean that the frog can't be detrimentally impacted by holding false beliefs which *are of consequence* to a frog! If you can't formulate a better argument than that, then put on your "floaties" and crawl back into the kiddie pool.
Uwot Mate Re: _"it matters not that i believe high speed traffic is perfectly safe or that i believe it is dangerous _*_so long as the neurobiological processes in my brain send a message to my muscles and cause them to act in such a way that i avoid the traffic_*_"_ - Well guess what, Maynard... conscious life forms aren't automatons. We're not hard-wired circuitry devoid of a complex interactive neural network, which exist independently of the memories, beliefs and knowledge we retain. When you receive visual and auditory stimuli consistent with cross traffic at an intersection, you actually process that information. You're not a bucket full of responses disconnected from cognition. But none of that in any way deters from the fact that you are material, your brain is material, and the knowledge held in your brain takes a material form in the synapses between neurons. Just because stimuli are processed before reactions are delivered doesn't mean that what you believe is unimportant to your evolutionary survival! In fact, it is that processing - which is interconnected with information, beliefs and knowledge - which results in the accuracy of your beliefs, affecting your ability to survive and reproduce. Survival for reproduction happens to be the one and only goal of the evolutionary process. And the ability to learn, form beliefs, and utilize that information and those beliefs in the assessment of stimuli, is paramount to the discussion at hand! And the fact that you seem to think that there is no connection between beliefs one holds, and the actions they take, only further demonstrates your mushroom like cognitive aptitude.
I'm sorry if it came off that way. I do understand how you think, because I used to think the same way. Since I've been on both sides of the fence, I realize that I may be taking a certain license with it. But, before my own journey began with the topic, I realized that I had to educate myself with Theology AND science. Example: macro vs micro evolution, which is what Plantiga comments on. Many of us believers know that micro evolution is fact, always has been. Not everyone is a fundamentalist.
On the basis of illustrations like the ones i gave you, you can make a strong case that our cognitive faculties are very unreliable (not absolutely unreliable) but that the ***PROBABILITY of R is low, not zero. In other words, just because your illustration proves (and i concede it proves) that in a particular scenario our faculties must necessarily be true in order to be conducive to survival, it still leaves you with the problem of vague and indifferent cognitive deliverances, as illustrated.
Depends. If one is seeking "proof," as in calculating an orbit for a particular celestial body, no. There are many things which we believe without scientifically demonstrated, empirical evidence. Some of them are critical to our continued existence. The reality of numbers and the reliability of mathematics, logic, existence of other minds, the existence of a linkage between our mind and our cognitive faculties, just to name a few.
iamasmodai Can evolution provide evidence that it is ongoing outside of the one who believes in it skull ? Or how about gravity. hmm we can't observe this things or prove them outside of ones pondering of it. . right ?
In other words, it is not about what our senses are delivering to us specifically, rather it is about the essense of what we receive through the senses. If our senses are geared towards survival and not specifically truth in the natural world, then it follows anything we might assume to be objectively true about the deliverances of the senses are believed on faith. Just because they follow a certain pattern is besides the point, there may be millions of other patterns our senses won't show us
he means like, you can't prove that they are not just figments of your imagination. When you're in a dream, the people you interact with talk and act real, but they're not, even though you can see, hear, smell and touch them. I feel like dreams exist specifically to remind us to never stop questioning reality
2:50 This is correct. They simply assert "there is no evidence for God" while never clearly defining their standard for what would count as evidence. I feel as if they think God is a literal person living in the sky that requires empirical evidence, which is absurd.
there is a difference between evolving around a universe in order to survive in it, and living in a universe for the sole purpose of discovering truth about it. You can prove scientifically the existence of a socalled dark matter and you can test it to see that it has certain properties and that it follows a certain logical way of being. But what is all that worth if every single pathway through which you observe the dark matter has evolved such that it has never been interested in truly knowing
I'm a theist, I believe that God exists and that he (if it is even a he) made me and cares for me, even though the reasons that an all powerful being with theoretically no desires should are unclear. What I believe is that God made me with synapses that allow me to make sense of the world, not synapses that do not, even though I would not be able to tell if he did. Why don't you believe me?
I'm not arguing in favour of reward/punishment. I am saying that the reason we even consider reward/punishment is because we presuppose the moral accountability and agency of the person involved. I agree with Kant on the reward/punishment issue. Imperatives should be followed because they are imperatives and not because they lead to rewards or punishments.
If Plantinga is saying that our cognitive faculties are unreliable because they are evolved by a process for which truth is of secondary importance then, he should show that indeed truth & survival don't converge on the vast majority of cases, which I think hard to do as I discussed earlier.
We've already been here and you already agreed that a correct picture of the world would assist organisms to survive and that correct reasoning menchanisms (when there is a drought, the mammoth herds are likely to be near the waterhole). Given a naturalistic theory of mind that's all that's needed to refute Plantinga's argument.
Well, with all due respect, since this is an area I've researched for some time, there are many convincing (positive) arguments for God's existence. Have you ever considered actually digging into that side of things? At least on the level of deism there's the cosmological argument, the argument from morality, the teleological argument, the argument from cosmic fine tuning and several others. As far as christian theism i can reccommend N.T Wright and Gary Habermas on the historicity of Jesus
Some attacks against religion are perhaps unfair. But, one thing we can say is that religions (and other irrational ideologies or belief sets such as say communism) have tended to reinforce tribalism, attaching flags to different groups of people, who are really not all that different otherwise. And conflicts then maintain these distinctions. What we need is unity so that we can live together and tribalism is one the main inhibiting factors for that.
This is not nonsense. Your remark suggested that you are not convinced that we have free will. How can one be morally responsible and accountable for what one does if one doesn't have free will (i.e. if one can't freely choose between murdering or not murdering, helping a poor person or not helping a poor person, etc.)? If you know of a way that a person can be held morally responsible for his or her actions in the absence of free will, then I'd be happy to hear more about it.
As I already said, its not my personal ideal, its the ideal of many christian believers. Putting aside the copping out that you are doing by saying that God cannot be fully understood, and that understanding that concept of God can be understood to some extent even though it may not be fully understood, it becomes impossible to prove that a God that is beyond our comprehension exists and the best we can do is try to prove certain aspects of that God to be true, or not true.
@Mentat1231 On top of those great philosophers that actually have some interesting thoughts, rationalism in the end leads to everything from theology, new-age mysticism, to an infinite amount of systems of thought that ultimately have no use and lead us nowhere. Empiricism on the other hand teaches us about the real world out there, and what we can do with that knowledge.
Lets expand on this a bit. When your mum taught you to tie your shoe laces, did you learn the exact finger movements she made or did you make a model in your mind, so you can visualize the process? Now when you think about tieing shoe laces are those thoughts completely separate from that shoe tieing model you made in your head? Do you understand shoe tieing or just do it by rote?
Only the senses and intuitions that are not testable against reality. Other beliefs (like "fire is hot" and "falling is dangerous") that are practical will be selected for in the direction of truth.
I didn't gather that. It sounded to me like his syllogism goes more like this: 1) If one accepts the premises that their belief's are physical events 2) One must conclude that accepting the premise listed in (1) is *also* just a physical event. Which would mean: 3) Your belief in naturalism is a physical event. This is circular logic. Physical events don't explain physical events. REASON explains the connections between physical events. See Roger Penrose "What Things Actually Exist."
No problem, it happens to the best. It wasn't sarcasm though, it was what I thought reality to be when I was an atheist and this logical outwork was what brought me to Christ. So I was just trying to show how one should think about value and morality if there is no God.
Okay, I had written more about why I'm not convinced by Harris's account, but it seems to have disappeared. It's very difficult to respond on a forum like RU-vid. I think that we can agree to disagree. Hopefully, some people enjoyed reading this exchange :)
If you take empirical reasoning (which we agree can be reliable) and combine it with logical necessity, we have certain expectations about how the world works. We use those expectations to conjecture general rules about reality which make testable predictions and can be falsified. This philosophical idea of Popper's is itself a conjecture, but leads to a theory that hasn't been falsified, hence its a good explanation and we can reasonably believe it.
@metalsusa1 Well, honestly I was being stupid by quoting popular youtube videos, but I do have to add that it has been said that "An argument is what convinces reasonable men, but evidence is what convinces unreasonable men."
I can reccommend others. As a former agnostic I read the work of new atheism, mainly by Harris (since I think he is the only one really worth reading). None of these new atheist leaders stand up to the postmodernists I've studied. But Ive exposed myself to the other side of the debate because I feel if my faith is something worth keeping it should stand up to the barrage. If you'd like to inbox me I can reccommend some literature you can download online, all of which is intellectually appealing.
I might expand on this by saying that not only do we correctly represent models of the world, but we also need to be able to reason reliably about them. For instance, we needed to know correctly how mammoths behave in order to catch them. We need to calculate how dangerous the weather looks etc. That's the origin of our ability to reason correctly about the world.
I understood and accept your illustration whole heartedly, but I don't believe plantinga's argument by itself intended to state that all of our beliefs are false or that true beliefs have no value to evolution- only that true beliefs do not have *absolute value. I agree and accept that in the kind of straightforward situations akin to the one you illustrated, a belief that is false would be damning to survival, but that still leaves you with vague/indifferent scenarios that get weeded out
Can the nature of a person be a spirit ? What is a spirit ? If spirit is simply the non-physical or immaterial ? If so are my thoughts or ideas are spirits or abstract numbers are spirits ?.What basis do we have for having a ontological category for spirits ?
@Mentat1231 "How could you possibly empirically verify the fact that we should empirically verify things??" You could observe the consequences of not doing so and working out exactly what the causes of your mistakes were. Without empirical verification, there would be no connection between your arguments and reality. "But logical positivism has been rejected specifically because of these kinds of inconsistencies in it." Rejected, yes, but not because of that particular inanity.
I would lay down my life for my wife, or my children for starters. There is your example of unconditional love. There is no way that you could convince me that you have never heard that before.
The point is that we got the ability to reason about the world through evolution, but we are fallible (cf fallibilism, Popper), exactly because of that. That's why the discovery of science, which has a system of checks and balances emerged as the only way we know of not fooling ourselves... and it works; the modern world is a testament to that.
@Mentat1231 Yes there is. Logic before observation would state that a particle cannot be in two places at the same time, it violates a logical law that states that matter can only occupy one place in space at any given time: yet, observation shows this to be false. Hence, we change our logic. Observation drives our logic, not the other way around.
@Gnomefro It is the set of constraints *within* which empirical observation should be kept, yes, but I disagree that it is just a matter of assigning symbols to phenomena along with a non-contradiction constraint. We're talking about a system (logic) which can address the ideal form of a thing (e.g. a parallel line), even if that ideal does not exist in reality. Extrapolations can be made from those ideals, which would never be accesible to us in pure empiricism. It's a different system.
I find it interesting how non believers have a tendency of discrediting the idea of God by putting their personal ideals into the equation, whether they be lofty or melancholy. i.e. the problem of pain and suffering. It seems like the easy way out of having to realize or contemplate something that is beyond what we can fully understand.
I'm a naturalist, and an eliminative materialist. I disregard souls and gods as conceptual (ego) positions imagined by the brain. Evolution allowed my brain to believe and reason by accepting truth as part of a logical and scientific method. That scientific method allows me to study the failures of our mind. Al we need is a detailed theory to answer the how questions, without question begging and invoking god of the gaps etc.
"I used to think that Plantinga's "Properly Basic" idea was absolutely ridiculous, but..." - I'd like you to let me know what his other more rigorous work is.... ( forget his personal testimony... I know he is a christian.... ) What was the clincher for you? Can you summarize it, since it's so central to your new consideration?
Since evolution works in very small steps and only on the basis of survival Jack would never have learned to be, for instance, an electron microscope in the first place. The reason we can now reason about the universe, is that in the last 100 million years of evolution, human brains expanded in capacity immensely. There are several theories why that happened, but we can never be certain about historical explanations and minds don't fossilise.
If you want to start to understand some of the issues related to naturalistic theories of philosophy of mind and neuroscience, start with Stephen Pinker (How the mind works), Daniel Dennett (Freedom Evolves, Brainstorms etc) and anything by Hofstadter.
@Tobytrim "Stuck at the one job for 28 years?" Notre Dame is one of the leading universities for the philosophy of religion. He kept the job for 28 years because, well, it's the best job in the world for what he does. There's no further promotion in his field.
@raoskaos Seconf point. I think a plausible response to that dead-end would be that non-existent things or non-existents, or more precisely, non-existence cannot be axiomated for we would be axiomatixing nothing (the axiom would be vacuous). I think the solution is to either accept or reject an axiom. And you're free to do both if you like, but that does nothing against whomever accepts an axiom about the existence of other minds or about the existence of God.
@Tobytrim Why not? What exactly would a divinely inspired holy text look like to you? Or would such a God to you not inspire any text but simply go around slamming miracles into everyone to make sure they believe. The problem came from the reformation where the bible became mass printed and then people started disagreeing on scripture (although there have always been some disagreement but this is where it took off)
are you understanding my point. I find it very hard to be convinced by the argument myself, because it appeals to an infinite number of possible worlds that we can't even imagine (because we are not evolved to imagine them). So the argument can't really be backed up effectively by illustration in virtue of that. I think thats why many people find it hard to understand. The point is arguing from the standpoint that we have to see/believe true things or indeed everything to survive is fallacious
@SonoPortoricano I ment "faith" in the religious sense, not axiomatic. And that's what your saying: "scientists can make assumptions, so we can too." The thing is axioms(like the speed of light) are self-evident(to scientists). "...but you are actually and primarily objecting to yourself." - No, I am making a hypothetical scenario where you standard is justified. I would like to change my (hypothetical) unbelief in god in belief that there is a meganatural spaghetti monster. ...
His argument is basically that, if we evolved randomly (the universe was not set up in a way that we would evolve with reliable cognitive faculties), then our cognitive faculties and intuitions would evolve in a way that would help us survive, not in a way in which to have true beliefs. It has been argued that mild paranoia is "better" than truth. Wouldn't that mean it's more likely that our senses and intuitions are a paranoia than the truth?
"I get the feeling you aren't actually reading my comments." - yeah, I have a problem with RU-vid.. i dont always see all the comments, sorry about that.
@astroboomboy "....so our cognition and senses correspond to this reality." Senses do correspond to this reality as they are interacting, but what makes you think that cognition corresponds to anything other than survival?
I don't want to complicate the issue (as I'm not sure you've understood the basics, yet). But, it seems likely that our belief systems did evolve in social environments, where we have to communicate with each other. It should be pretty obvious that social animals that have random beliefs, that aren't related to their actions, would be unable to communicate with each other successfully and would not be selected for by evolution.
@girtkaz What is the best way to survive for a mammal? It is to know it's environment better than its predators and prey, so obviously cognition responds to reality. The more complex a brain is the more analogies it can make, and thus it can create better "pictures" of reality and understand one thing in relation to another. This in turn creates better ways of responding in any given situation.
