A Philosophy Instructor's Observations on the ABC Nightline Face Off... and other thoughts (blasphemy challenge, etc.)
Offline Hello Kelly and Sapient,
As a human being first, a christian second, and a philosophy instructor, I have several observations to make. First of all, thank you for promoting rational civilization. Secondly, thank you for taking life seriously enough to challenge beliefs that appear to you to be false and sometimes dangerously false.
The letters G-O-D don't mean anything until they are filled with content, and the christianity I know claims to be truth of the sort that can be rationally responded to 
And of course if they don't have any rational meaningly content, then of course "blaspheming the holy spirit" becomes meaningless and harmless.
Since Mr. Comfort claimed to be able to prove God's existence without using the bible, I think it was a bit dishonest to then bring it into the debate. And, when he did so, I believe he did so in part by way of using the biblical teachings as a kind of magical incatation. That is to say, proclaiming the teachings forcefully and loudly as if the words themselves were somehow magical; as if the hearers didn't need to understand, but just listen and believe... or go to hell. Although Mr. Comfort would be the first to deny using the bible in this way, he can't help it. The bible has been used this way by well-meaning, but sadly misinformed christians for at least the last 60-70 years. Curiously, when you offered your rational responses to their presentations, they failed to respond because they were unprepared. It makes me suspect that in their preparations and prayers they were possibly hoping they would not need to respond because they were possibly praying that God would convince and/or convert everyone during their presentation. (Of course I could be wrong about this.)
I want to finish up with two substantive observations in defense of Mr. Comfort's presentations. Regarding the painting demands a painter argument, I was reminded of the atheistic philosopher Anthony Flew, and his parable of the garden:
Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, "Some gardener must tend this plot." The other disagrees, "There is no gardener." So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. "But perhaps he is an invisible gardener." So they set up a barbed-wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds. (For they remember how H. G. Well's The Invisible Man could be both smelt and touched though he could not be seen.) But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds never give cry. Yet still the Believer is not convinced. "But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible, to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden which he loves." At last the Sceptic despairs, "But what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?"
Flew doesn't answer and Mr. Comfort didn't answer, but I know of a good answer. What is the difference between an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?
THE GARDEN
The existence of the garden demands an explanation... a reason... a sufficient CAUSE for it's existing rather than not existing.
Which leads to my final observation regarding your comments about the third law of thermodynamics and your suggestion that maybe the universe itself is eternal and therefore doesn't need a God or a cause.
If the universe is eternal, then there must be an explanation... a reason... a sufficient CAUSE WITHIN ITSELF for it's existing and being eternal.
The philosopher A. J. Ayer defined "sufficient cause" as being either a necessary condition or a sufficient or both. More precisely, the cause of a given event (its effect) can be defined as that set of conditions, among all the conditions that occurred, each of which was necessary and the totality of which was sufficient for the occurrence of the event in question [see The Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Causation].
I offer these observations respectfully.
Madison Thacker
p.s. I plan to post this to The Way of the Master website and to my blog: http://www.madisonthacker.com
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Welcome, I'm glad you're here. Amidst the remarkable dip in IQ points the site is experiencing in this post-debate influx, glad to see some intellectual import.
Which leads to my final observation regarding your comments about the third law of thermodynamics and your suggestion that maybe the universe itself is eternal and therefore doesn't need a God or a cause.
Third Law? One of you must be mixed up here. The Third law states that entropy approaches zero as atomic motion approaches zero. You must be thinking of either one or two.
I'll see what I can argue against this:
The Universe does indeed need a cause. We've established that for years ever since Hubble confirmed that it was expanding and that if we rewound the clock the universe had a beginning.
However, that cause is not God. This would commit a deus ex machina fallacy.Plugging an intractable problem with an intractable solution.
God is quite simply an intangible plug. same as when Einstein found that his equations didn't work in a static universe, he plugged in a "fudge factor" to cancel gravitational attraction because he couldn't concieve that the universe was expanding. But he was wrong, now we know about Dark Energy and hyperinflation. When Newton's classical theory of celestial mechanics and gravity laws were confronted by a clergyman who argued that gravitational force should simply cause any large matter body to crush itself, Newton feebly argued that there was a "vital force of ether" that held everthing together (of course, now we know about the space-time continuum and the membranous fabric of the universe)
There are more plausibe explanations then God. This is why I prefer multiverse theory. Quantum tunnelling and hyperinflation will always be more parsimonous than God. Spontaneous breaking, and SU1xSU2xSU3 Grand Unifying theory (which have to do with something known as a false-vacuum fluctuation) are simply better explanations. They make sense.
Quite simply, all these anologies, the Garden, the Painter ad infinitum are rehashed versions of the Cosmological argument. They all appeal to infinite regress. Infinite regress merely comes from a human inability to percieve time.
Time has often been regarded by philosophers as an abstract entity, a slow forward march. Yet this is not the case. The human mind perceives in three spatial dimensions, yet it cannot percieve time, the fourth. Time is not some abstract infinte intangible. It is a dimension, more specifically a higher mathematical function expressed in a dimension, the fourth. It seems to march forward inexorably, yet it is not the case. Because it is woven into a membranous fabric called space-time, it can be bent, and broken, or perhaps stopped or rewound. It is incorrect to ask about the impossibility of infinite regress, or the necessity of a creator if there must be a beginning. It is circular reasoning simply because time only exists when material existence does.
This is why I prefer multiverse. Fixes all the problems, because universal genesis is an eternal process. Universes "bud off each other when space expands to the point where it starts exceeding the c-limit and a new universe is born. In this universe, time only begins at the moment at singularity. That is why it would seem to us that time has a beginning. When in fact it does not.
To first consider the God hypothesis , I would need to know what God is and if it is possible. Both I and another poster called todangst considered this point and adressed it here:
http://www.rationalresponders.com/supernatural_and_immaterial_are_broken_concepts
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/sapient/philosophy_and_psychology_with_chaoslord_and_todangst/6279
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
That is to say, proclaiming the teachings forcefully and loudly as if the words themselves were somehow magical; as if the hearers didn't need to understand, but just listen and believe... or go to hell. Although Mr. Comfort would be the first to deny using the bible in this way, he can't help it. The bible has been used this way by well-meaning, but sadly misinformed christians for at least the last 60-70 years. Curiously, when you offered your rational responses to their presentations, they failed to respond because they were unprepared. It makes me suspect that in their preparations and prayers they were possibly hoping they would not need to respond because they were possibly praying that God would convince and/or convert everyone during their presentation. (Of course I could be wrong about this.)
Actually, that sounds quite dead on....Comfort and his puppy Kirk Cameron are notorious for intellectual dishonesty (and dishonesty in general) routinely taking the quotes of famous scientists out of context, using scare tactics and condenscending attitude etc, I distinctly recall Mr Comfort saying in one of his many ludicrous publications "Please forget your arguments and turn your lives over to Jesus. God does not want you to go to hell".
Yes..well. That sure showed me.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
Hello,
Thanks for your very interesting comments. This is an interesting dialogue. I'm very impressed with your knowledge of science, especially since my knowledge of science is admittedly fairly meager. Yes, I should have quoted Sapient correctly as referring to the First Law of Thermodynamics, not the Third.
Also, what I was hoping to suggest by my appeal to sufficient causation is a cause that stops the regress. That is my understanding of "sufficient" cause in this case. To my way of thinking I am making a philosophical observation similar to the one in your signature quote from Stephen Hawking:
"Should we ever resolve that question, namely the true nature of the universe, it shall be the ultimate triumph of human reason. For then we shall know the mind of God"
In this case, would it be reasonable to say that in addition to "knowing the mind of God", we would also know the sufficient reason?
(Aside from making hypotheses (scientific and philosophical) I wish to point out that if we consider the biblical definition of the term G-O-D, we find an incredible unity in diversity, three minds in one entity, the philosophical problem of particulars and universals is resolved, the regress stops, and we also have the surprising fact that communication and love (among the three minds) has existed eternally before/above/beyond time, giving our personhood an infinite reference point for accessing meaning.)
In this case, would it be reasonable to say that in addition to "knowing the mind of God", we would also know the sufficient reason?
Scientists like to use God as a metaphor to give eloquence to a topic, a sense of granduer, and universal vastness. A technique used by Feynman, Sagan, Einstein, Dawkins, Hawking, Davies, Greene etc. But when we speak of God in this way we surely do not mean God in the religious sense, for what unites all these men, along with myself, is an embracing of philosophical materialism. When we speak of God we refer not to a transcendental ether outside the cosmos, but rather the cosmos itself.
Also, what I was hoping to suggest by my appeal to sufficient causation is a cause that stops the regress.
But there never was any problem of regress. That was what I pointed out. The problem of regress can be reduced to an Argument from Incredulity, since humans lack the ability to percieve time. This is a rather difficult phenomenon to convey. I believe the man who expressed it best was Kurt Vonnegan in Slaughterhouse Five.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
Finally a good name to represent christians.
Although I must say, I didnt find philosophy and christianity to go hand in hand. Now I know you can be!
Heather
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
well actually, in the nightline debate sapient said "3rd law of thermodynamics" but he meant 1st. he stated this in a caption in the video he made of it.