<p>Even if he were dead, you can be sure the Billists would insist that he still existed and had influence. :P</p>
<p>Also, you should have picked something besides a hot stove, since I’m pretty sure those were around and functioning before Bill Clinton was born.</p>
<p>You assume Bill Clinton is bound by time. Surely Bill Clinton is so powerful that he transcends his own birth.</p>
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<p>A lack of need for something is never an argument against it in terms of its metaphysical existence; Occam’s Razor clearly does not apply as normal here. The fact that the concept of God falls outside the scientific method is enough to demonstrate that God is not scientific and therefore cannot be proved or disproved with science. Therefore, one cannot develop an “argument against God” with a discipline outside of which he falls by definition.</p>
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<p>I can see how the irrational might be frustrated, yes.</p>
<p>Baelor, it depends on how you’re defining “against.” If you mean “a direct refutation,” then there is nothing for or against God <em>directly</em> speaking. Occam’s Razor applies in the sense that a theist might say “X + Y + Z + God -> some phenomenon in our universe” whereas we can say X + Y + Z is sufficient because God is not needed to explain any influence over the phenomenon. </p>
<p>There is also a certain level of pragmatism involved. At the end of the day, we could always resort back to base-level epistemology and mince words over what “truth” is or when something is “real” or not, but that really gets us nowhere. There’s <em>always</em> a chance of something being true in the realm of the unknown and there are infinitely many ways to permute that. One random belief is just as good as another. The problem is that many conflate emotional utility with truth.</p>
<p>The point here is that the evidence is not in favor of God, if you want to be specific. It’s in favor of a variety of other natural explanations given the confines of our universe’s properties.</p>
<p>^This is why many scientists, being ever pragmatic, avoid “mere” philosophy, and perhaps even detest it. For example, in QM we have the Copenhagen Interpretation, which was best summarized by David Mermin: “Shut up and calculate!”</p>
<p>I still think that one could question whether this level of devotion to pragmatism is a good thing in questions of meaning and existence, though.</p>
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<p>But God doesn’t require proof in the scientific sense to exist; nothing does. What I’m saying is that your entire approach is predicated on the very false notion that God has to do anything to be worth considering as an entity.</p>
<p>Oh c’mon people.</p>
<p>Einstein may not have defined himself as atheist, and he probably technically isn’t, but he’s much closer to deists or atheists than anything near a Christian monotheist.</p>
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<p>The “God” Einstein may credit to the universe is nothing like the “God” you believe in so I assert that Einstein is simply misusing semantics and does not believe in “God” at all really.</p>
<p>I can call the fish in the sea “God,” so I can tell you God exists; he is readily visible in the oceans feeding on worms. But it is not really God as is the accepted term.</p>
<p>He certainly doesn’t believe in an afterlife or immortal soul or anti-gay marriage or the Bible, or what have you. He believes that the universe was created by mystic forces, perhaps forces even un-perceivable by man or science, ever. But not a human-like or thinking God.</p>
<p>Baelor: I’m saying that he DOES need some sort of evidence to be worth considering as an entity. The problem is the concept of faith. Faith by definition requires no evidence in this context. Scientists/rationalists find the idea of faith to be very impractical and ultimately useless in the pursuit of truth, which is, after all, what we’re all debating over.</p>
<p>If God actually exists, but there’s no way to ever prove/disprove it, then there is no worth to us.</p>
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<p>Not really. Political rights, ethics, and mathematics are all things that are very worthwhile, and knowledge of these subjects isn’t obtained by collecting evidence.</p>
<p>What are you talking about? Of course they do. Those subjects are derived from things that we observe in our universe – hence evidence.</p>
<p>On a purely epistemological level, anything can exist outside of our reach, and it’s possible that our reach will never be enough no matter how far we go. But if something has no impact on us, and we can’t even detect it (and nothing we ever do would result in detection), it <em>may as well</em> not exist for us. We can’t ever say with certainty that it doesn’t exist for the sake of existence, since lack of proof of existence is not proof against existence, but we gain nothing from such a thing.</p>
<p>^Huh? I am sure that not all political rights, ethics, and mathematics theories are empirically based. I guess this goes back to the age-old Rationalists vs Empiricists debate, though.</p>
<p>Also, not everyone is a verificationist, legendofmax.</p>
<p>You seem to have an issue with people making decisions based upon things that exist only in their minds (from your perspective). Do you believe that we have an ethical obligation to only act based upon what we can physically observe or what we are told by experts when personal observation is not possible? If so, justify this position using empirical evidence.</p>
<p>Sithis you are missing the point of what I mean by “evidence.” EVERYTHING is done the way it is because it all derives from some sort of construct or context that is from our universe. Absolutely everything. Mathematics is a language fully defined by humans, btw – even things like the complex plane are defined in a specific way. We can describe whatever we want given what we’ve ultimately defined through relationships we experience in the real universe. Likewise with political rights/ethics, they derive from utility and psychology which have their roots in the very real and physical universe.</p>
<p>If you still disagree, please give a counter-example.</p>
<p>And yes, there is such a thing in epistemology as a justified true belief (which is associated with the general concept of “knowledge”) – what’s true for me is true for everyone. I can have an “opinion” of something, but that opinion is mine and mine alone (and is formed based on a rather elaborate causal chain of chemical interactions and environmental feedback). But for something to be true about the universe, that is something we “agree upon” as humans because we can all experience what we claim is true with our ability to sense (in a variety of methods).</p>
<p>Regarding your question, I think we already do base our decisions off what we observe. Science is just a system of observation and making relationships between patterns we find in our universe.</p>
<p>I understand what legendofmax is saying, he is right.</p>
<p>Basically, consider this.</p>
<p>God exists.</p>
<p>Except, you can never perceive him at all - he has no effects, and you can’t sense or perceive him or anything. He doesn’t play a part in our universe whatsoever.</p>
<p>Even when you die - you never see or hear from him, or witness any afterlife, anything. A universe with this God and no God look exactly the same. They have the same ramifications.</p>
<p>The question is: well then, who the hell cares if inviso-useless God exists?</p>
<p>I’m an atheist and I would say that I am more conservative than liberal.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say I agree with all the propaganda the conservatives spread.</p>
<p>Another point- Why exactly do so many people online use the IQ test to measure intelligence?</p>
<p>How many of you even know why it was designed?</p>
<p>I think many people of lower intelligence(Not referring to an IQ score) arrogantly believe that test scores such as the IQ score, SAT score, and what college you go to reflect everything about intelligence.</p>
<p>If you actually take a look back across history you would understand that most of the brightest people didn’t exactly follow this framework.</p>
<p>In a sense it was designed to control stupid people who could never think outside of the system that was designed to control their lives.</p>
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<p>Are you sure about Isaac Newton?</p>
<p>^ </p>
<p>On the IQ bit, I am in full agreement with you. In fact, I can’t think of anyone better than Richard Feynman to demonstrate this viewpoint. If the name doesn’t ring a bell then go to Wikipedia. </p>
<p>He is up there amongst the smartest people of all time - a pioneer in quantum mechanics and a Nobel Prize winner. Among physicists, he is up there with the best. </p>
<p>Anyways, to my point, his IQ was only determined to be around 125. This is a high level of intelligence but very, very far from the genius level; yet, there is no doubt that he was a genius by every meaning of the word. I just thought that might be an interesting tidbit.</p>
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Well, obviously. We have some perception of what we call the universe and our cognition is derived from that. I don’t see how any of this supports your original argument about the meaninglessness of God.</p>
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Not all political and ethical theories are utilitarian. Ethics and politics also predate the formal study of psychology, so please elucidate this point.</p>
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I think it would be tremendously difficult to ensure the validity of the statement in bold.</p>
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All this means is that a significant majority of the members of the species homo sapien can come to some perceptual agreement about the universe. That this has any significance or priority over personal beliefs has not yet been justified.</p>
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People don’t observe God directly, and yet make decisions about their lives which are influenced by the idea that God exists and has some set of things he wants people to do. Here I am talking about direct evidence, so don’t claim that “Oh, they base it off the observation of their religious texts or ministry.” If I make a decision based upon some Holy book, people exist who would object to my decision as unreasonable due to lack of evidence for the validity of said books commands. Likewise with ministry. I am certainly not arguing that our experience of the universe is not perceptual in nature.</p>
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Can’t prove this.</p>
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Apparently theists do. Nonethless, your argument hinges on the idea that people are some how beholden in their actions to the “natural” state of the universe, its physicality, etc. But…look at the advances of technology, medicine…people are constantly trying to contradict/overcome the way they experience the “universe” working in their time. They envision things being different than they actually are, and attempt to manipulate the universe to make those differences part of “reality.” Now, if I, by some method (drugs, mental conditioning, neuroses) convince myself that a magical pink flying bunny wants me to go and kill 50 people, and I do so, I would say that the “existence” of the magical pink flying bunny becomes significant. No, this Bunny does not exist in the sense that it is a discrete thing-in-itself that is part of a physical universe. But it can be questioned whether anything “exists” in this fashion.</p>
<p>Basically, consider this.</p>
<p>The set of real numbers exists.</p>
<p>Except, you can never perceive them at all - they have no effects, and you can’t sense or perceive them or anything. They don’t play a part in our universe whatsoever.</p>
<p>A universe with the real numbers and without real numbers look exactly the same. They have the same ramifications.</p>
<p>The question is: well then, who the hell cares if the real numbers exist?</p>
<p>Real numbers are labels, abstractions, but they do exist. I can say, the word “obvious” has 7 letters. And it does. In fact, I can ask anyone that question and they will mostly get it right without my prodding. Can’t do that with God. Nice try though.</p>
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<p>Who here said IQ tests were measuring intelligence? Einstein simply seemed to be a very intelligent person.</p>
<p>Yes, we are all aware of operational definitions and measurements, and how they often lack external validity. Especially with a vague and loaded term like intelligence. Thanks for bringing up that tangent.</p>
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They don’t exist in any physical sense, which is what we are supposedly talking about here. Otherwise I can simply counter your argument by saying that God exists as an abstraction or label, and in this way he is useful/meaningful to people on a personal level even if they don’t observe him directly.</p>
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What if they don’t know English? What if they can’t count?</p>