God, a definition
Offline The notion of comparing God, to leprechauns, and Santa, has gained some currency among atheist circles, particularly the popular forms of it. And this has evolved into a weird sort of perception of God among unbelievers, that doesn't understand the distinction between a being like my neighbor next door, and god, or the distinction between saying Obama lives in the white house, and God exists.
What I'm going to do is to define God. What I'm not doing is advocating that he exists, nor am i defining it to suit a particular branch of theism, but one that applies to fundies, and the Anglicans alike. What I'm doing is defining God, along the lines of what the word means, and implies, and on what basis is it to say that "God exists".
Imagine you were walking one day, and you were hit in the head by a rock. Let's hit pause, and let's see what sort of "beliefs" are involved here. You believe, A) a rock hit you, and you believe B) in some sort of "force" that allowed the rock to hit you, regardless if it being the air, or a person with two arms, a black man , or a leprechaun.
What you believe is that a rock hit you, and "B" just logically follows from that belief.
"A" and "B" in some sense are not two separate beliefs, but two unified ones, you can't believe "a" without "b".
So now let's introduce "C". "C" is whatever specifications we give for "B", or whatever specifications we give for the force, like saying the "force" was a person, or the "air", or a white person, a person wearing two sneakers, green, short, and wearing a funny hat.
"A" is not dependent on the specifications (C). I can believe a rock hit me, without knowing how it happened, without knowing if a person threw the rock at me, or if the wind blew it.
A God belief is a belief in "A," and all that goes into believing in it (B), but it does not involve (C).
Example:
Bob believes like the Discovery Institute advocates, that the universe has a sense (or pattern) of intelligent design to it (A), and if you believe this, you believe in what logically follows from it as well, i.e an intelligent designer, i.e a creator (B)
Another name for "B" as the creator of life, is God. If we believe in "A", most of us would be deist. Notice the only charchateristic of God here, is "A". If we say "God exists" it 's only saying so by the mark of "A", sort of like saying a person was here solely by seeing a set of shoe prints in the dirt.
So if you were to ask this hypothetic deist why he believes God exists, he would say because of the pattern of intelligent design he see in the intricacies of the universe. It would be odd to argue with him sayings, "it's fine and dandy that the universe reveals a pattern of intelligent design behind it, but show me evidence for the existence of God", as if these belief are separable. It would also be odd, to say to this deist he's no different in believing that God (a creator) created the world, and a Leprechaun created the world.
What you would really be asking is not why doesn't he believe in an alternative to God (a creator), but a Leprechaun as that God. The difference here, is the one between saying a person knocked up Sue, and Tom was that person who knocked up Sue. Tom is not an alternative to person, but a specifications of that person, or a "C".
A person believing the universe was created by a leprechaun believes this: "I believe the universe was created by a creator (God), and that this creator (God) is green, and two feet tall, and wears a leather hat, and occasionally places gold at the end of the rainbow.
Compared to the deist who believes only: "I believe the earth was created, by a creator (god).
Now you can use this process with every portion of a theist belief.
Like: Bob believe what he prays for gets answered (A), which logically follows that he believe in the force that makes that possible (B) or in other words "God"
or another example: I believe in god, because I was miraculously cured of herpes..........you get the point.
All characteristics of God are accumulations of "A", in some sense you can say that God is defined by what he "does" or "did", or what he "gives" for the respective believer or groups of believers. What's common for atheist to do is elevate God beyond this, by requesting his social security card, and the exact location of his home, by a fault understanding of what the term means.
I thought about going into a lengthier discussion, about how this relates to the Christian belief that Jesus Christ is God, and the grounding for most forms of theism (outside of fundie circles) for whom god is not a mechanical sort of creator, but an aesthetic one, that rather than perceiving God in the supposed mechanics or science of life, he's perceived in the beauty of it.
But it's late, I'm tired, and I've decided to give it a rest for now. Hopefully at this point you understand the distinction between a belief in a leprechaun, and God, and the difference between saying Bill Clinton exists, and God exists.
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....what?
Well I hate to be TECHNICAL, but it's twice as likely that a Leprechaun exists over God. (another blow to theists)
So you are saying an effect would have a cause.
So you are making up an invisible rock that you never saw to explain a pain in your head?
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
At this point I'm only trying to clarify your argument..I haven't gotten to anything else yet.
If you define God simply as a cause, then is not almost everyone a theist? It's my experience with definitions of God that the cause has to be an intelligence. It also often has to be omnipotent, omnibenevolent, etc.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
No, no, no, it's a cosmological argument.
He's saying that (a) A rock hit your head. (b) Regardless of what it is, something must have caused the rock to hit your head. (c) The characteristics of this cause.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Okay okay let me get this now...
A = Rock hitting you = God
B = Cause of Rock hitting you = Cause of God
C = What is cause of Rock hitting you = What is cause of God
These where he placed them above...so....how does this work?
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
No, that's not it.
A = Rock hitting you = Universe
B = Cause of Rock hitting you = God
C = Characteristics of cause = Properties of God
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
THIS is the issue, and the failure in the attempted definition.
By the given definition, Atheists would believe in gods. There would be no difference between gods and science for the Atheist to claim: This is DUE TO Science, it's not due to gods.
The definition does not permit mutual exclusion of gods and science, and for that rea on, the Atheist would be unable to claim disbelief in gods, which by the given definition (for the Atheist) would be Science. Although theism does not require the belief in Science, the definition given of gods equates the two, i.e. gods and science, and is for that reason an insufficient REDEFINITION of gods which would not permit the Atheist that does believe in Science to NOT equate Science and god.
For that reason, t
e given definition, while fine for a Pantheist, is NOT OK for vast numbers of Atheists.
Try again.
BTW. This is about the 1 millionth recent thread on the same thing.
Can't you find something new as an OP!
So far, the ONLY thing that fits ALL definitions is "primary" gods (e.g. Zeus) are considered eternal. That includes non-personal gods as well. Nothing else has stood the test to git a universal definition. However, despite that single attribute withstanding all tests,that attribute alone is insufficient to define all gods.
No that can't be right...because he said A = God, and B = "all that goes into believing in it", while C = not involved
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
Some quibbles:
First off, A, is not the universe, A = designed universe, B = Designer of the universe (God), and I said there are no "C"'s in the God conception, or the equivalent of saying God has two arms.
I understand the issue, and I should have perhaps wrote a bit on it in the OP, because you're wondering where characteristics like "all powerful" come from? Well, let's go back to my example of a intelligently designed universe, it follows from this belief, that the universe was created by an intelligent designer. The characteristic of "intelligence" here is not a "C" but a "B".
Going back to the rock example, it's sort of like "A" being revised to not just saying the rock hit you, but that the "rock hit you really hard", and "B" would not only be that some force propelled the rock that hit you, but that it was also a "strong" force--be it a strong gush of wind, or a strong person.
I should have perhaps clarified better, and said that "C" is not merely characteristics of "A", but rather "characteristics" that don't follow from "A", such as "the creator wears red shoes". Wearing a red shoes, don't follow from a belief in "A" at all, but a characteristics like intelligence do.
Edited for clarity
In your example I don't believe a rock hit me, I know a rock hit me. I can see it sitting on the ground in front of me and I can feel the bruise forming on my head. These are things I know.
So what you should actually have written is:
A) A rock hit me (Our knowledge)
B) Something must have caused this rock to hit me (an assumption of force based on knowledge that rocks don't fly)
C) That something must have been an agent; either a person throwing it or a bird dropping it (a conclusion based on the knowledge from B which can be clarified by further investigation).
If we now apply this corrected principle to your God argument we get:
A) I believe that the Universe has design to it (Perception, based on the recognition of "order" )
B) A God must have caused this order (assumption based on the manufacture of non-universal* objects)
C) God is....
Well if we remove C, which you assign as the descriptor of our acting force, then we don't have a definition of God at all. We have an undefined assumption that the universe came from somewhere. Not exactly ground-breaking, nor helpful.
Forget Jesus, the stars died so that you could be here
- Lawrence Krauss
The error here people are making is that I'm not saying God is the cause of the universe in my example. But that a designer (God) is the cause of "designed" universe. Its the design quality, that matters. It's not the that the theist and the atheist perceive the universe as the same, the atheist perceiving the universe as not intelligently designed, the life has a sort of randomness to it's creation, and not a pattern of intelligence guiding it. While a theist perceives the opposite.
Thank you.
I clarified a bit further in my second post (post 11)
So to revise your "corrected principle" it would be this:
A.) I believe that the Universe has an intelligent design quality about it.
B.) A god (an intelligent creator) must have caused this
b.) God is intelligent
C.) there are no "C"s here, there are no characteristics of God that don't follow from A.
but it might not have been an agent, it could have been a strong gush of wind that did it.
Wouldn't that make the wind the agent?
Two little statements - so many "Argument from..." fallacies.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
It's broken in several ways. If I were hit in the head with a rock, then I have empirical proof that somethig happened to me. With no other information than that, I can't make a leap even to an intelligent cause, as it may be a natural process. For example, I am hiking on a rocky hillside, and the rock broke free due to wind. So, that's the first problem:
1) You are inferring an intelligence where the information does not dictate that an intelligence is necessary.
But ignore that. Assume that the situation is not such that a natural event could cause the rock to hit you, implying an intelligent mover. All you have now is a physical cause. And that's another problem:
2) You are assuming a non physical cause when the information does not dictate that the cause is not physical.
All in all, the metaphor is poor. If I were hit in the head with a rock, I'm not going to make any assumption about it until I have discovered the cause. If I cannot discover the cause, I am not going to make an unfounded leap and assume that some non-physical entity caused it, unless I have some proof that there is no possible physical cause and that said entity exists and is likely to have caused such a thing to happen. And that's where you get stuck, just like all other theists. Demonstrate that your non-physical cause is the only possible explanation for some empirical event, and we'll talk. Until then, you have no grounds to claim the existence of your god.
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
The (b) following on from (B) is redundant seeing as you've already specified that god is an intelligent creator. But that's just me being nitpicky.
Regardless of this revision my point still stands. With the rock we have:
A) Knowldege of an event
B) Assumption based on prior knowledge
so we can attempt to define the context and parameters of the event. For God we have:
A) Perception of "intelligent design"
a) noted pressuposition of intelligence.
B) Assumption based on perception
We can't define anything with this. It doesn't even stand as a definition of God. God is intelligent as a definition? I'm intelligent, does that mean I'm God? How does this separate God from man? It can't and therefore does not serve as a definition of anything.
er.... then the gust of wind would be "an agent". I didn't list a person and a bird as the only possibilities, just as examples of possibilities.
Forget Jesus, the stars died so that you could be here
- Lawrence Krauss
Yes, your right, i assumed incorrectly that the term "agent" is limited to beings, like birds, and a person.
Well, it's not merely "intelligence" as definition of God, but as an intelligent creator of the universe.
I know it was redundant, but i just wanted to specify a distinction between a characteristic like intelligence here. Secondly it's not God is "an" intelligent designer, like tom is a person, but rather another word for the same thing, that
terms like "God", and "intelligent designer" are like "human" and "person".
Well, i'd say you're making a distinction here, that's actually not there. Like your "A" can be revised to say instead of knowledge, "a perception of an event", and B.) assumptions based on prior perceptions.
When we believe something is intelligently designed, its based on our knowledge/perception of what intelligently design things look like. Like the watchmaker argument as it is applied to the human body. You can say this knowledge is applied incorrectly, that their assumption based on their knowledge/perception is incorrect (something that I hold as being true for IDers), but this is beside the point. The assumptions in your second example are based on "knowledge" as well.
You're right, my mistake in understanding the term "agent".
I made it pretty clear that my post was not an advocacy for the existence of God. To quote my op: "What I'm not doing is advocating that he exists, nor am i defining it to suit a particular branch of theism." I could make the same OP, even if I was an atheist. I'm defining what the term itself means.
Nice to get things right once in a while
Now, what makes your definition more than "God exists because I believe he did X"?
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
A belief in God is not based on believing he did X, as if somebody else could have done it too, it's based on "X was done."
I.E a person who believes that whatever he prays at night, his prayers are answered within a few days. A belief in God here is based on "X was done". The atheist arguing with this theist, if he's smart enough would realize, that the only thing to argue here with this theist, is if his prayer are actually being answered or not, if X was actually done or not. It would be odd asking for evidence for God, outside of prayers being answered to this person.
But it's not beside the point and the second example is not based on real knowledge. The analogy still doesn't apply. Even if we take my "A" to read "a perception of an event". It's sill the perception of a factual event; the rock did indeed hit me in the head. I felt it, I have the bruise, I saw and heard the rock clatter to the ground.
The problem with any watchmaker argument comes down to factual and assumed perceptions. If I stumble across a painting or a watch in the road I'll assume someone made them because I've seen them being made. This is factual knowledge. To state that the universe is designed because of perceived order can only ever be assumed because no-one has ever seen a universe being made. The person that makes this statement is assuming knowledge. Actual knowledge and assumed knowledge do not equate.
I can reasonably define the agent that hit me in the head with a rock based on perception of the event, evidence for that event and knowledge based on previous experience.
The perception of "intelligent design" in the universe doesn't define anything, it only assumes it from the get go. Hell, the entire "definition" of god you're presenting then boils down to:
A) I believe the universe contains signs of intelligent design.
We don't need a "B" about god because god is pressuposed in "A"
Forget Jesus, the stars died so that you could be here
- Lawrence Krauss
Wow... this was really fucked up from the get go... yet its just gotten worse as time went on... i blame god
What Would Kharn Do?
So it's "X was done and the person praying doesn't know who or what did it so it must have been God"?
Not helping your case much...
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Couldn't we say that since humans are pattern-seeking creatures,
A) The Universe can be perceived as having a design
B) This is a result of our proclivity towards seeking patterns
Therefore....our penchant for patterns is God? If we believe in this "force" that causes us to seek patterns, are we elevating it to the level of god?
"Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, show me the steep and thorny way to heaven. Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, himself the primrose path of dalliance treads. And recks not his own rede."
Oh, ah, thanks.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
A perception of the universe not being design is also a perception of a "pattern". A perception of random numbers, is a perception of a patter, a pattern of randomness.
And we don't have a proclivity towards seeking patterns, we have a proclivity towards seeking negative patterns, patterns that we perceive as threatening, before non-threatening patterns, or in other words a "negativity bias".
I'm guessing you're going off of Michael Shermers hunch about "Agenticity" as the basis for god beliefs, an argument that he makes, that falls a part upon further reflection.
Not true. No more than not collecting stamps is a form of stamp collecting that involves not collecting stamps, or not reading books is a form of reading that doesn't involve reading books.
Get it? It's like this silliness about atheism actually being a belief system. Same shit, different day.
ORLY?!? So when someone looks at a cloud and sees a squirrel in it- then tells someone else that it looks like a squirrel, the latter person saying 'oh yeah, it does look like a squirrel' THAT'S not searching and finding patterns? What about numerology? Astrology? Prophesies through the centuries? Pretty solid evidence of humans looking for patterns. This is what we do; it helps us survive and thrive in our environment.
Uhm no buddy, we use terms like "a random pattern" all the time. But let's try and put this is into perspective for you. Think of us a like a computer, our capacity to perceive things, as distinct are pattern perceptions. The only way I can argue over if something was designed or not-designed rather than having no clue as if it it was or not, is only by having an idea of what "designed" and "non-designed" things look like. If you're arguing that something was designed, I would have to perceive it as a pattern for what design things look like to hold it as true, and I would have to perceive it in as a pattern of what non-design things look like, to say it was false.
If you want to continue to make the case, that only the former is a pattern, and the latter isn't, I would like to hear your reasons for it? Are you claiming that when we say "a random pattern", that we're not speaking about a pattern at all? And while we're at it, would you care to define what a pattern is.
Sorry, I'm not predisposed to finding squirrels in the cloud, no more so than I'm predisposed to finding hair under my arm pits. I'm not looking to find poop in my neighbors lawn, thought I may notice it there, and though my neighbor might have been looking for it all along. I'm not looking for men who look like Chris Farley, but the other day i ran into a man that did.
I'm pretty sure we have a tendency to observe any pattern, not just harmful ones.
Edit:
Really? Don't you ever think that some clouds look like furry animals? It always happens easily when I try.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
I think they all look like Kirby.
The only patterns we have a particular "proclivity" or particular disposition to finding more so than other ones are "negative" patterns, patterns we perceive as threatening. This is what's called "negativity bias":
"Negativity bias is the name for a psychological phenomenon by which humans pay more attention to and give more weight to negative than positive experiences or other kinds of information.[...] When put in an environment with a variety of information to pay attention to, people will immediately notice the threats instead of the opportunities or the signals of safety. Evolutionary psychology sees this as an example of a smoke detector system (wikipedia)."
I'm not predisposed to perceiving clouds as furry animals. Some clouds might resemble furry animals, some clouds might resemble nothing at all, but I'm as naturally inclined to perceive a cloud resembling a furry animal, as I am to perceiving a cloud as resembling nothing at all. I don't have a "furry animal" bias.
Crevelo used the term a natural "proclivity" (predisposition toward a particular thing) when referring to noticing patterns of design, which is false, the only patterns we're predisposed to noticing are "negative" ones.
We do have a negativity bias.
Meh, perhaps I'm going about this the wrong way. Or, we're having some massive communication issues. Okay, so it's not that we have a particular predisposition to notice designed patterns, but simply patterns in general. Then, we have a predisposition to believe that patterns are designed.
And, of course, you don't have an inherent furry animal bias. We simply tend to pick out things that we're familiar with. A priori, you wouldn't be able to spot any furry animals, since you would have no knowledge of them. On the other hand, if you have some pet rabbits, you would have some "rabbit bias." Do you agree?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
First of all, way to ignore follow-up points
Strawman reductio ad absurdum c-c-c-c-c-combo! No-one suggested that you, or other people, are pre-disposed to seeing furry animals in clouds. Even the suggestion you seem to have taken on board that we're always looking for / seeking patterns is a confusion created by the language used. You said it yoruself:
The human mind uncosciously recognises and identifies patterns. People see things in clouds because the brain picks out curves and lines and compares them to what it knows and, in some case, it says "squirrel". Once someone is told doesn't that the cloud looks like a squirrel their brain immediatlely compares the perceived image to it's pattern for squirrel and makes a judgement call. Nothing about that suggests your brain is constantly looking for squirrels or is required to see them.
It's how we recognise family members after all. A smiley face is recognisable a face to us. You don't need a lot of detail to assign something a human value, but specific contrasts in shape of the eyes, nose and mouth (ignoring the rest of the head) give us the visual clues we need to confirm familiarity.
Except negativity bias has nothing to do with pattern recognition and all is more tied to value assignment. Negativity bias is one phenomenon which partly explains our survival instinct. By paying closer attention to things we have assigned a negative value we are more likely to survive.
What negativity bias ties into, and what most people mean when they discuss the recognition of a 'pattern' when we assign a design to something, is the human brain's over-developed sense of cause and effect. This effect ties heavily with our theory of mind in that, when we experience something with no apparent cause, we are able to imagine a cause and an intent behind it. Like one of those articles says:
So the actual process is: Perceive event/strange happening/pattern, assign cause, assign negativity bias. To repeat; negativity bias only deals with how much attention we pay to a particular event or situation, not our proclivity to recognise cause or patterns. Negativity bias only applies in situations of perceived threat but we can see patterns and order in events which aren't touched by bias. Like patterns of rocks for example...
This is where we now actually come full circle to the argument you present in your OP. We see a random bunch of rocks we think nothing of it. We see a tower or rocks that's outwith our experience we assume a cause behind it. We get hit in the head with an object we know can't fly and we assign a cause to it. People see DNA and the laws of science as being incredibly strucutred things and automatically assign a cause to it, this cause being god.
But that doesn't define god. It just gives an example of our proclivity to assign causal status to unknown experiences and perceived order.
M
PS - you'll note that the two articles I've linked to deal a bit more with how our theory of mind and the causal obligations of our brains lead to a religious mind-set.
Forget Jesus, the stars died so that you could be here
- Lawrence Krauss
I totally would have said what Michael said but.... yeah, I got nothin.
You can eat half my cookie crazy.
See? Everyone ends up happy.
Damn straight. That's the way to do it. Wrap it up and have some cookies or cake or pizza or something.
There will be cake.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
What kind of cake?
As long as it's not carrot cake, I'll be happy.
Key lime pie.
Ohmythatsoundsgood.
Well, I've seen Theists define God with more and more minimal definitions to try to get one of them to exist...
so, we've arrived at "God=A" as a definition... I think we've reached the limit, unless they want to define him as a symbol or irrational number..
Hmmm,... God = A
What is A? We don't know, but as soon as you figure it out, you've got a rock solid definition of "god".
It's so reasonable! i wonder why I'm not a Theist yet..?
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov
Listen idiot read the post again. And see why the end of your assumption here doesn't apply to me. Since i made that point explicitly clear.
No argument here.
I'm going to start here, since this is where the problem lies.
We perceives "causes" for patterns for which we "perceives" causes for. Such as if I find an object that reveals distinctive lines and curves for which is familiar to objects created by hands, we perceive causes for such objects.
The problem with individuals such as yourself (and a number of evolutionary psychologist) is that you attempt to make a false distinction, a special sort of privilege for this ability of ours, claiming that this is a perception of a pattern, while thinking "nothing of it" of a bunch of rocks, is not a perception of a patten, which is false.
We follow the same sort of methodology to distinguish "caused" and "uncaused" objects, "intelligently created" and intelligently created". We perceive "curves" and "lines" and what not, of what is familiar to us as being uncaused, and we think "nothing of" the pile of rocks, compared to Mount Rushmore because of this.
I point out negativity bias, because negativity because is a preferential recognition based on our biology, for perceiving patterns of threats, before patterns of "non-threats", such as picking up on the sound of a fire alarm far more quicker than the surrounding noises of ice cream trucks. But we have no such inherent proclivity to notice objects as "designed" or "caused" than objects that are not.
The reason we perceive certain things as designed and caused even falsely so, is because we have developed a familiarity or learning with what the supposed features, lines, and curves of designed and caused things things look like, and with the same token we perceive things as not designed and caused (even falsely so) because we have developed a familiarity or learning with what the supposed features, lines, and curves, of what non-designed, and non-caused things look like.
There is no proclivity to assign cause to unknown experiences, unless the known features of the experience, the ones that we can make sense of in light of other experiences, have the same "lines' and "curves" for caused things. I have as much of a proclivity to assign cause to something, as I have to not assign cause to something.
And unlike negativity bias any sort of "proclivity" here is not the result of our biological makeup, but rather as a result of familiarity and learning.
This has been my argument all along, if you take issue with it you let me know.
What? The only points i "ignore" of particular individuals are ones that i feel I covered in post to others, or that I covered in the rest of my response to that individual. Or perhaps I missed a point somewhere? I have no clue as to what "point" you feel i ignored. SO please direct me to it, and I'll respond, and I apologize if you feel shafted.
Actually you're wrong. I was trying to separate pattern recognition, which is an oft misused phrase, from the actual meat of the thing - which is perceived design and cause and effect. I said:
And I meant most people. I was trying to qualify this as not being my position. I'm trying to remove pattern from the discussion so we can stick to "design" and "cause".
And you've got no disagreement with me here either. What I was trying to point out was that negativity bias is more concerned with how much attention we pay to something. It doesn't necessarily comment on how quickly we identify it. It's a subtle but important distinction.
I disagree. As pointed out in one of the previous articles I linked to, babies, who have no experience of the world, are able to determine that there is something odd about an object moving in a stop-start fashion but have no problem with a person doing the same thing. In fact they are surprised by the motion. They understand that a person can cause motion but an object cannot. 5 month old humans have already developed a theory that attributes motion to living things. Please explain how they attribute causal chains with no real experience of the world?
I'd like you to clarify this. Please explain what a designed thing looks like.
The babies already cover part of this point.
No proclivity to assign cause to unknown experiences; yet the definition of God you've given, and that many people hold, is a being that designed and created the universe - a causal status he's been given based on perceived design. Tell me, how familiar is most of the human race with the creation of life or a universe?
I felt that you hadn't adressed this closing statement:
Forget Jesus, the stars died so that you could be here
- Lawrence Krauss
If you are a Theist, then you simply define "god" into existence - and it is clear from your post that you are trying to define god, and then assume it exists in some manner: that is defining it into existence. There is no difference between a Leprechaun and God: both are pathetic explanations for effects - especially because you don't know the qualities of the actual Referent. You're just making it up as you go along.
Hell, you don't even know what the effect is! You don't even know what "caused" the Big Bang, or what started life. You don't know - no one does. Yet, you in your spectacular ignorance and arrogance think that invoking "god" solves the problem in some way - that it is a meaningful gesture. It's just verbal hand-waving. A pathetic way of saying "I don't know - but it sounds very pious and impressive, and I can claim all sorts of things with the term "god"!"
You wouldn't call God the reason a billiard ball fell into the pocket - unless you were a totally ignorant and pathetic excuse for a human being. Yet, this is what you are doing - and you seem to be proud of it!
And calling "god" the feeling you get when you look at a baby is equally pathetic. It's meaningless. It is not what many or most people define as God, yet you think your definition should be the one that is adopted? Good luck. The issue is not the definition of "god" - that is easy, the issue is to show that there is an actual Referent: something real that has the metaphysical qualities to apply the defintion to in a meaningful way. Not just your pathetic way of boiling down the definition of God to meaningless drivel.
Uttering a monosyllabic guttural noise to explain incredibly complex effects is pathetic. It's barbaric. It's no better than your ancestors did 100,000 years ago. It's worse that you vaguely apply it to anything you can to get to stick, and even more so to be proud of it.
Oh, and calling someone an idiot when you show clear signs of intellectual deficiencies doesn't look good for you. I get what you are trying to do, but it is just hand-waving. You claim that a belief is tied to an effect, and that people attribute it to... well, it could be anything... god, leprachauns, air, etc...
You have effectively neutered the definition of god and think you have improved the situation!
Oh, and all characteristics of God are not (necessarily) the accumulations of "A" since many of those things are contradictory. Plus, you don't get to round up a random collection of words and apply them to a term and claim it is meaningful. "soccer ball, train, tree, pogo stick = Gad" Gad exists! (And please note that all those things really do exist, whereas the effects you claim that are tied to God, don't necessarily exist. For example, there may not be a "cause" - in any way that we understand the word "cause" - to the Big Bang. So, claiming you can grunt "god" as an explanation for the supposed cause of the effect is, frankly, childish.)
Go back to bed. It appears you need to sleep one off.
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov
No, what you desire to do in your deluded state, is to claim by no basis whatsoever other than the assumption that I'm a theist, that I'm trying to define God into "existence".
But to rid you of your delusions, I'm going to tell you I'm an atheist, the theist badge was in fact attached onto my name by some mod here, and not one that I had given to myself. I don't believe in God. Now go back and revise your post with this in mind, to see if you can provide a less foaming response based on your misanthropy of theist.
I didn't write my post as an advocy of theism, or atheism, so if you have a dispute with what I argued, even if you find it shallow you should be weary of trying to bring my personal beliefs into it. You're entire post can be claiming by the basis of you being an atheist, that you're a communist, and then going on at length at how ridiculous communism is. I'm sure if I did such a thing, you'd percieve me as comical idiot, now I ask that you step back and look in the mirror for once.
Why a big g? What is wrong with a little g? Or an s at the end?
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
Show me one shred of evidence (besides the fact that I have a theist badge attached to my name), that reasonably makes the case that I'm trying to define God into existence, or to claim that I'm trying to make you assume he exists in some manner? You and I both know that you can't deluded one, so perhaps now you'll have the intellectual courage to apologize for your erroneous accusations? Or you can act like a child, cry some more, and then run away. The choice is yours.