on discussing god and religion

A Change of Mind for Antony Flew
Peter S. Williams
at the bethinking web site

But then the distinction that each of us as individuals will come to between following an argument wherever it leads, and reconfiguring the argument into something that we want to believe. Only here, the reality of human psychology, in my view, becomes entangled in complexities that none of us really have the capacity to untangle such that we come to the most rational assessment. It all gets jumbled instead into a convoluted mishmash of genes and memes and individual experiences and individual sets of circumstances embodied in dasein and in a life that is ever and always unfolding amidst what can be a torrent of contingency, chance and change.

And since with God and religion there is so much at stake on both sides of the graves how much can we really trust the conclusions that we come to “here and now”?

One hint today, a very different hint tomorrow. Or next week or next month or next year.

A Change of Mind for Antony Flew
Peter S. Williams
at the bethinking web site

One can only imagine the day [if that day ever comes] when scientists are in fact able to make that unequivocally crucial chemical leap from wholly non-living matter to living matter. And then that man-made living matter evolving on its own in ways that suggest how it might have happened “naturally” before human beings were ever around.

Now, when I was younger and watched documentaries like Cosmos I came upon segments like this: youtu.be/g90gzvsO1DU

I figured that surely before I died, science would accomplish this task. So, have they?

nist.gov/news-events/news/2 … s-normally

Of course we don’t even know for sure whether life on Earth originated on Earth. It might have come from something “out there” that smashed into Earth.

Now it just comes down to whether any of this is finally resolved before each of us one by one falls over into the abyss that either is or is not oblivion.

That and more or less blind “leaps of faith” of course.

Bions may be just that.
Riech was able to culture bions from non living matter that was sterilized and heat-treated at very high temperature.

In theory bacteria are like snowflakes.
When the conditions are right, they are produced.

Okay, but that still leaves theodicy, right? :wink:

God allows death and suffering otherwise they would not exist.

Same as the arguments for the existence of Satan.

It’s somehow necessary.

Not really, but somehow, it is anyway.

If I was God i wouldn’t create anything without giving it a lot of thought.

Have you ever heard of “stupid design?”

Attributes in genetic codes that all animals should have but only a few or just 1 has it.

Like tiger shark’s salt releasing gland.

Some lizards can regrow lost arms. I think it was lizards. Or newts or something like that.

Wolves have crazy good sense of smell but everyone would be better off with that upgrade.

Birth defects is also part of the stupid-design argument.

As I noted on another thread, it’s pointless for us to discuss things like this.

At least beyond this – :wink: – anyway.

Our basic assumptions are just too far apart.

On the other hand, sure, some new experience, relationship or access to information, knowledge and ideas might nudge one of us close to the other’s frame of mind. Then we’ll see.

A Change of Mind for Antony Flew
Peter S. Williams
at the bethinking web site

In other words, God is nature and nature is the universe or God is a God, the God, my God.

And that makes all the difference in the world to some philosophers.

The part that still makes absolutely no sense to me. To “think” or to “believe” that God is the universe? Okay, and how is that not just another way of configuring human interactions into a reality whereby everyone of us is necessarily embedded in his or or her own inherent niche and there is thus never any possibility of it being some other niche instead. How can there be right and wrong behaviors when all behaviors are natural behaviors and could never have been other than what they are. And death? That’s just part of nature too. Along with oblivion when “I” do go.

No, with one or another a God, the God religion, the human condition can revolve around a Creator that provided us with free will. And an actual immortality and salvation linked to Him. With a No God religion none of that is around.

This God:

Okay, but only if and when we are able to understand how a No God Nature managed to actually bring this about. “Entirely on our own devices”…how? What does that mean in regard to the components of my own philosophy…identity, value judgments and political economy. Every last one of us being “at one with nature” as though that actually explains anything at all in regards to the lives that we live from day today.

Talk about a “general description spiritual contraption”! What part of man does reflect “the best”? The parts embraced by “one of us” or by “one of them”?

A Change of Mind for Antony Flew
Peter S. Williams
at the bethinking web site

Or, more to the point, until the existence of living matter culminating [so far] in the human brain is unequivocally explained by science with no need to include a God, the God, my God, then a God, the God, my God is still one possible explanation. And it’s not for nothing that, for some, the deeper we go into grappling with the astounding complexities involved in the creation of biological life – not to mention the staggering mysteries embedded in the universe itself – that an omniscient Creator isn’t ruled out entirely.

On the other hand, given the sheer complexities involved, why would God be bound by them? Is God Himself necessarily anchored to the laws of nature? Was He not able to create a simpler, less “vast” cosmological reality for mere mortals like us?

On the other hand, suppose science does provide “a satisfactory naturalistic explanation for [all] facets of biological reality”. Won’t the religionists merely rationalize that? Just think back to the time when the church stopped persecuting those astronomers who were pointing out things about the Earth going around the Sun or the orbits of the other planets that were not consistent with Earth being the center of God’s universe. Or those who squared the existence of dinosaur bones with Creationism: thoughtco.com/how-do-creati … rs-1092129

So what if science is successful yet again in accomplishing something thought to be solely within the purview of God? Or of something described as consistent with “intelligent design”.

Besides, how intelligent can the design of biological life be when there are hundreds and hundreds of different afflictions we can come into the world with; and hundreds and hundreds of afflictions that can impale us all the way from the cradle to the grave.

Nope, as long as God is seen to be the only viable access to immortality and salvation, all the scientific accomplishments in the world will merely be subsumed in His mysterious ways. Religion isn’t about being rational; instead it’s the mother of all psychological defense mechanisms. With oblivion itself on the horizon.

A Change of Mind for Antony Flew
Peter S. Williams
at the bethinking web site

Okay, it’s not the God of Moses and Abraham, but there must exist a God, the God? Even if someone is not able to say with any degree of exactitude what it means to them as my God?

Suppose hypothetically science was somehow able to pin down that there must be a God, the God? But were not able to really go much further?

Would that work for you?

Because it certainly would not do much for me. Yes, it is established that up there/out there somewhere there is a God. But how does that in and of itself help me to pin down the behaviors I am obligated to eschew on this side of the grave in assuming that this newly discovered God actually is the gateway to immortality and salvation.

That’s really what religion is all about in the end, right? The font for distinguishing vice from virtue so as to enable you to avoid oblivion. Or damnation.

Sure, it would be fascinating to discuss and debate this existing God. But basically all the denominations that exist now would stay the same: God does in fact exist so it must be our God.

One possible alternative however: “minimal deism”.

God created us but now we are basically on our own to sink or swim? No Scripture to divine objective morality here and now? No immortality and salvation awaiting us there and then?

That kind of God?

Maybe. But still no less a God that is defined or thought up into existence.

And for those Christians who point to Flew and say, “what about him, Mr. Atheist?”, he’s still a long, long way from their God.

So Flew ties himself to Jefferson and his 18th century deist conception of God based on a Newtonian conception of the universe. Oh well.

Duplicate post

Oh well? In what sense? Given the manner in which you connect the dots between morality here and now and immortality there and then.

A Change of Mind for Antony Flew
Peter S. Williams
at the bethinking web site

Again, the deist God [much like the pantheist God], ever and always brings me back to this: Where’s the beef?

If these Gods are not involved in laying down the foundation for morality on this side of the grave, bringing about a Judgment Day and then, depending on whether you pass or fail, being immortal up or down, what’s the point of them existing at all?

After all, it’s not for nothing that the preponderance of religious denominations that most are familiar with, are very much intent on connecting the dots between morality here and now and immortality and salvation there and then.

When it comes to religion, THAT IS THE BEEF!!

Spinoza’s God.

Given that He – It? – has no “preferences either about or any intentions concerning human behavior or about the eternal destinies of human beings” what on earth did he imagine awaited him on the other side of the grave.

Spinoza and God…now.

It seems to me that the Gods of the deists and pantheists are basically just the Gods that intellectuals think up. The philosopher’s God. For the preponderance of humanity however that God just doesn’t cut it. They can’t appeal to this God when their life is in the toilet. Or when they need to be absolutely certain they are doing the right thing. Or if they need to believe that in doing the right things, they get to see all their dead loved loves again on the other side.

The real God in other words.

A Change of Mind for Antony Flew
Peter S. Williams
at the bethinking web site

And, for someone like me, that is a crucial distinction. When I look around me at the world we live in, the planet we reside on, all of the many, many ways in which terrible things can happen to us that are more or less completely “beyond our control”, it’s not the existence of God that fascinates me nearly as much as theodicy. Sure, a God, the God can never be completely ruled out as an explanation for existence. In fact, for many, that’s the first thing that will pop into their head.

But when, over and over and over again, you hear this God described as both “loving, just and merciful” and “omniscient/omnipotent” how can you not sit back and think, “What the fuck?!!!”

Again, of what actual use is that God given the primary function of religion: morality here and now, immortality there and then.

It just allows you to use Him to explain why there is something instead of nothing, and why this something and not something else. He does exist “up there” or “out there” somewhere, but that need not concern you.

Of course. Why else would the faithful have to include His “mysterious ways” in the script? Or figure that somehow this infinitely good Creator was not infinitely powerful. The universe got away from Him and He is just as pained by the consequences for His creations [us] as we are.

Either that or another alternative: God is basically a sadistic monster.

God and logic.

Cue pood?

A Change of Mind for Antony Flew
Peter S. Williams
at the bethinking web site

This is how the “analytic” God can shift back and forth depending on the definitions you use. But in the end you are always defining something that is basically just “thought up” in your head in the first place.

Primary cause/secondary cause. And “within creation”. Try to factor that into your day to day interactions with others.

Okay, but science has only been at it now for that proverbial blink of an eye given how long the species has been around. Prompting us to raise questions like this. And now that Flew is dead of course there is no way in which he will be around when, a hundred or a thousand years from now, we may well be creating or own rendition of life. Besides, does the deist God have any particular reason to care that non-living matter evolved into living matter evolved into us?

Life evolved out of matter containing no life at all. God set it all into motion. Perhaps as the primary cause, perhaps as the secondary cause. But what’s that got to do with us? If, from His point of view, nothing at all then I suspect that some will insist there may well have been no God at all once He got the ball rolling.

So, okay, if this “deist” account of God works for you such that you are willing and able to take your own existential leap away from atheism, take that all the way to the grave. For me though a God of this sort is more or less completely irrelevant regarding what I construe to be the whole point of religion insofar as it is able to “comfort and console” me. Does the existence of this ghost-like God allow me to feel less fractured and fragmented? Does it make it any more likely that death does not equal oblivion?

And, again, that’s before we get to the part where this God is still just defined or “thought up” into existence.

For me, what you think or believe about oblivion and eternal punishment is of less interest than what you are actually able to demonstrate to me that all reasonable men and women are obligated to think and believe about them.

In the interim, I’ll stick with the conjecture that what you do believe about them is derived existentially from dasein; and that it revolves largely aroud the manner in which, psychologically, it continues to comfort and console you.

And I do have my own thread. This one: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=186929

Drop in anytime you’d like to connect the existential dots between “morality here and now and immortality there and then”.

We might even touch on my own main interest in God: theodicy.

A debate perhaps.

Resolved: God is a sadistic monster

Still, you can always count on me to thump the likes of Sculptor. :wink:

Are you kidding me?!!

One of the most crucial leaps of faith among the religious is that those who defy God will be punished for all of eternity. That’s everywhere. All around the globe.

Indeed, imagine a religious faith that did not provide the flock with that satisfaction.

Yes, you’ve thought up your own God to make all that go away. But who here doubts that your God is worshipped and adored by only a teeny tiny minority of religious folks out there. Or in here for that matter.

A Change of Mind for Antony Flew
Peter S. Williams
at the bethinking web site

The worst of both worlds perhaps. Not only is it not at all clear where we mere mortals fit into all of this, but even if, instead, it were crystal clear that this God does in fact exist it appears that for all practical purposes we mean squat to Him. He’s up there doing His thing and we’re down here doing our thing…creating hopelessly conflicting moral narratives that, even if they prevail, we still end up tumbling over into the abyss that is oblivion.

Ah, but at least the atheists can’t say that God does not exist!

In other words, he didn’t tap himself on the shoulder in order to remind himself that science has barely begun to scratch the surface in regard to all of this. That in, say, a thousand years, what science may or may not know about the evolution of matter into human minds would no doubt astound us today. Indeed, imagine folks who lived a thousand years in the past being around today and gasping at what science has discovered about the world around us [and inside us] in just the past millennium.

It may even be able to pin down whether brain matter itself has entirely compelled me to post and you to read this.

THE STONE at the NYT
Morals Without God?
BY FRANS DE WAAL

In the absence of any definitive evidence for the existence of a God/the God, this discussion and debate would seem to be ultimately futile. And that revolves around the gap between an omniscient God and mere mortals that, after thousands of years since philosophers came on the scene, we are no closer to all concurring on a Humanist facsimile.

Go ahead, chose a moral firestorm and note one where the Humanist come the closest? Or even the optimal philosophical argument that completely debunks the perspective of the sociopath who concludes that in a No God world, it is reasonable to predicate morality on “me, myself and I”.

Sure, it can result in any number of calamities for any number of people. But not for those who are able to get away with it. Show them where such a point of view is inherently, necessarily wrong.

Bottom line [for many]: with God you get a moral script to default to on this side of the grave and immortality and salvation on the other side of it. And all the evidence in the world from those hell bent on yanking God out from under you isn’t likely to sway you. After all, it is not exactly irrational to conclude that sans God morality really does become an abyss.

Even I am preprepared to suspend disbelief if someone can even nudge me in the general vicinity of all the things I used to believe about God. Any God in fact…just offer me a scintilla of hope.

THE STONE at the NYT
Morals Without God?
BY FRANS DE WAAL

In fact, over the years, I’ve collected reactions to that from the God world folks and it always comes down to one or another rendition of this: “if God doesn’t exist, we still have to invent Him”.

No God and nothing cannot be rationalized. Not only that but absent an omniscient God, you might even get away with it. And, even if you do get caught, it’s not like you will burn in Hell for all of eternity.

Morality always comes down to God. And the Humanists with their “thought up” secular renditions never really even come close to closing the deal in regard to morality here and now and immortality there and then. They just fool a lot of people eager to find something – anything – to take His place.

What I call the Urwrongx1000 If You’re Not In My Coalition Of Truth Syndrome.

Got a few of them here in fact.

Nature.

Maia’s? Satyr’s? Your own? Call it, say, humanity and the genes you came in on?

But then all those pesky memes, right?

Exactly my point. Of course we are hard wired biologically to embody “social norms”. We are, after all, social beings. Or, rather, most of us are.

Anytime men and women interact in a community, “rules of behaviors”/“rewards and punishments” are also built into the “human condition”.

A God, the God, my God has of late become a crucial and wide-spread manifestation of this. But it is not absolutely requisite that He/They be around in order to have whatever any particular community calls morality.

Or what those surplus labor philosophers came to call Ethics.

I’m one of Franz DeWaal’s biggest Facebook fans, and have consumed some of his research. But the fact that he has documented that other species than humans have recognizable moral behavior doesn’t support the moral nihilist’s view that humans invented morality.