God-did-it! Matter did it!
Posted on: February 17, 2011 - 9:07am
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God-did-it! Matter did it!
Hello!
Discussing about a complex phenomena whose causes aren't understood by current Science,
some "goddidit-ist" apologists, when faced with a charge of argument from incredulity,
answer by reproaching the rationalist of being not less fallacious in saying 'matter did it!' without bringing
a confirmed natural mechanism for the aformentionned phenomena.
Accordingly: for un unexplained phenomena,
postulating a unknown material cause is as unjustified as
postulating a supernatural one.
Is that claim acceptable?
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Nope. For one thing, I would not ever try to explain everything away into two or three words. When irritating theists try to throw the "God did it" argument at me, I generally respond with " How do you know ? " . Which leads to problems. If they are a bible based theist, then I point out the fact that the bible does not mention a round earth, a big bang, nor anything else. So they are contradicting themselves somewhat if they are going to believe both the bible as an absolute and science. (They usually dodge this argument by saying they do not take the bible as literal, which is easy to refute because they DO take certain parts of the bible as literal and interpret the parts they do not like as symbolism). Kind of like the contradiction in wishing to accept science as an authority on most things, but then saying they don't trust science.
The so called broad minded, free thinking, theists that seem to have this all encompassing, vague, force-like being that they call god, contradict themselves, because they will say that god is a total mystery but then revert to the "god did it" argument to try and explain the very thing they call a mystery.
If I do not understand the inner workings of something, I do not just conclude that "matter did it" and stop thinking. I say that I do not know until I can look at what the evidence says. It is the evidence that I go by not a faith or an assertion.
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“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
Harley hit the nail on the head.
It's OK to say, "I don't know".
Now, you might be justified in saying, "Matter *probably* did it, because we've never seen anything else happen os the evidence points to materialism." but it is important to make sure your discussion partner understands you are arguing from a pragmatic or rational position rather than an assumption.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
I don't think the 2 points are equal. We can see material/physical causes for things all around us from molecular atomics to ion channels to the formation of stars. But no one has ever, ever, ever observed a supernatural cause for any event in the material world. The word 'supernatural' should be replaced with the word 'imaginary'.
And when you think about it, no one can even imagine the supernatural. Instead we just paste natural characteristics to the term. A man who can fly like a bird. A man who cannot die. A man who can create wine out of water. A man who can heal the sick. All these concepts are extentions of the natural world. That's the human god. Just a man who can do natural things in a physical explicable universe, only better.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
I'm going to add a redundant word to what you wrote
Accordingly: for un unexplained phenomena,
postulating a unknown material cause is as unjustified as
postulating a unknown supernatural one.
Now that we got that out of the way you can see how the two are nowhere near equal.
An unknown material cause is something that you can investigate and set as a realistic goal of that investigation.
An unknown supernatural cause makes no sense because supernatural is by definition something we cannot know, so ANY supernatural claim that you make is unknown by definition. It's not something that you can investigate or set as a goal. You can talk about it until you're blue in the face, and misunderstand philosophical concepts to fit your ideas. You will, however, never prove it as cause, because if it becomes a KNOWN cause, it will no longer be supernatural.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
No.
Not in my mind.
But my mind is sound.
I checked!
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris