From The God Delusion:
There seem to be some flaws with Edward Feser’s response to The God Delusion at edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/02 … ience.html
I can’t quite put my finger on what is problematic with his response. Perhaps someone in here can identify the problem.
It truly is amazing how some medieval theologians gave modern atheists and modern Christians some very mental games to play that have little to do with, say, the teachings of Jesus or even the OT.
Religion as syllogism.
Religion as rubik’s cube.
This all has little to do with the religion as lived.
But if it’s fun to pretend a very small, minority way of thinking and talking about God within Christianity is Christianity, party on.
Mutcer, are you a determinist?
No, I am not a determinist.
If religion - or anything for that matter - is presented in a manner that isn’t logically sound, people will pick it apart.
Do you believe in free will, then? And as a follow up to the first question: since you are not a determinist does that mean that there are uncaused things/events in your opinion?
People will pick apart anything, sound or not. They often try to find an portion of whatever they want to attack that they feel is weak, even if it really isn’t how most people think.
I like where you’re going with this. It is disappointing to see how quickly people are disposed to throw naked scepticism at religions, yet protect other cherished, would-be fictions and myths. If they want to be sceptics, fine, but they should be consistent with it.
IMHO, Dawkins should stick to his genes. I think Moreno got it right. In Dawkins’ attempt to discredit religion, he attacks mideval (Sic) religious dogma. He does not examine experiential Christianity. He could not have won a debate with Schweitzer. I’m wondering what fundy bug stung his youth and caused his irrelevant reactions to religion.
Well, he may not have any fixed beliefs around causation and free will, but if he has any, I am hoping to show that he may also become confused and self-contradictory as he accuses theists of being. At these hyperabstract levels confusing language for reality and also the messiness of deduction are something we all have to deal with. But who knows where this line will lead.
One confusion both Mutcer and Dawkins make is that they focus on the epistemology of the individual believer as if this was a central portion of religion, and as if the language believers are choosing has exactly the same purposes, for example with superlatives, as other language use. I don’t think people really care very much if their deity has an unbelievably beyond human comprehension type power or is omnipotent. For the believer on the ground the distinction is irrelevent since they are focused ON THE RELATIONSHIP. And on relationships and community in general in religion.
But Dawkins and others of his ilk take the claims as if they were scientific claims, and intelligible ones, and then starts playing math with them as if deduction at this level has any meaning.
The vast majority of non-physicist atheists would look very foolish discussing cause and cosmology within science. But who cares.
The proposed big divide between theists and atheists is the fantasy. The real dividing line is between the sane thoughtful people in both camps, and the fanatical fundamentalists in both camps.
I’m a fundamentalist agnostic myself, so put me in the nut jar with the rest of the loonies.
I agree. But in our age of the numbing and dumbing of the masses through televangelisim and tele-escapism, there seems to be no theologian who could challenge Dawkins’ atavistic view of religion.
Before I answer that, let’s be sure we’re on the same page with respect to what free will means. I take it to mean the ability to freely choose between more than one option when faced with a choice. I believe that my choices are freely made. There are outside influences that often affect my choices, but my choices are freely made.
When you insert the word ‘opinion’, that makes it a difficult question for me to answer. I don’t ever even concern myself with how the universe came into existence, nor do I care. What’s material to me is what is going on in the present.
But I’ll answer it anyway. Everything has a cause - whether direct or indirect. The cause for the concept of God is largely man’s fear of the unknown. The cause of man is nature. The cause of nature…I don’t know, nor do I care.
It would have behooved the forefathers of Christianity to have had the foresight that the more their religion grew, the more people would try to find logical holes in it. When a theist and a non-theist discuss the existence of God, you’ll often hear the theist resorting to things like “God works in mysterious ways” - as the theists are running out of ways to plug the holes in their doctrine.
It would behoove you to realize you accept the infinite authority of reason as a matter of faith. You are what you’re fighting.
If free will is the power to freely make decisions, then I firmly have a very fixed belief that free will exists. I also believe there is a cause for everything - either direct or indirect. But I don’t always care what this cause is. But trust me, there is no confusion on my part about the ability of a fully omniscient & omnipotent being existing. Just as it is logically impossible for 2+2 to = 13, it is logically impossible for something to be fully omniscient & fully omnipotent.
What exactly is the “infinite authority of reason” and upon what basis do you believe such a thing exists?
If there is a cause, and only one cause, for everything, for every one effect, then your apparent choice was but the effect, single effect, for a single cause. There was no choice in the matter. Sure, to the person having the moment, it feels like…but don’t they say the same about their Christian God, that it is something that they feel? But, make no mistake Mutcer, if every cause must discharge an effect, then there is nothing free about your willing. It is but the determined effect to a set of causes that escape your awareness, but which actually are the cause, the unwilled caused, of your apparent choice. Otherwise, if your will is free, detached from the history of the universe, and is an uncaused cause, then you are talking about 2+2=13. Either your will is NOT free, but an effect of brain states determined by invariant (hence no choice) forces (chemistry), or, not everything is has a cause.
My sendup of the mathematical underpinnings of science–1 gas tank plus 1 lit match = 1 explosion. 1+1=1. For 1+1 to =2, the ones must be identical. Unfortunately there are no real identicals in the natural world. So math is a logical proposition. It is ontological as an experience of dimensions and counting. What does this have to do with religion? It could only if numbers have some mystical significance. Dawkins would not believe that!
Not if God is reality Itself. If God is reality itself, than the facts that 2+2=4 is true and 2+2 =13 false would be the case because to be true is to correspond with reality. God would not contradict such facts because God’s omniscience and omnipotence cannot contradict logic. Logic and mathematical facts are true because they correspond to God’s own being. God cannot contradict God’s own nature. For God to do so would upset the rational structure of the universe. Out of divine benevolence, God would not do such a thing.
Gods can transcend logic aswel as morality and reality.
How?
To me this feels meaningless. That can sound harsh, but that’s not what I mean. I understand what you are saying, but I just think we overestimate what we can rule out. I can barely understand most experts, human ones. I feel very lost trying to rule out or rule in what a God can or can’t do.