# Agnostics, what would make you believe in God? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 28, 2005, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572 "2005-07-28T13:16:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2005, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/161 "2005-08-03T10:26:58Z")
Gyan, Well there is Truth and there is truth. Let us accept that there is Truth, some absolute reality, outside of any human belief system, and that there are truths that exist within human belief systems. Human truths are always interpretations of Truths based on the utility of those beliefs. Within the framework of religion God is truth; outside of that framework God may be a possible truth or not. Other, Sorry if I seemed to quibble over terms, but someone who says that only having their brain reprogrammed, that essentially only removing his free will, would convince him seems pretty set in belief of no god. Measure, Yeah … Gotta admit I don’t get your criterae. Blockbusters I understand, but why the bit on consciousness being a function of organization of the system rather than of what is being organized? How does that set up God for you? ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2005, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/162 "2005-08-03T15:08:34Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Human truths are always interpretations of Truths based on the utility of those beliefs. Is that the Truth or the truth? 😉 My point was the notion of God could be rejected by an atheist even if it is admittedly psychologically useful. ---
**Author:** ![Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/58956e/32.png) [@Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoodoo_Ulove)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2005, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/163 "2005-08-03T15:08:53Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Let us accept that there is Truth, some absolute reality, outside of any human belief system, and that there are truths that exist within human belief systems. Human truths are always interpretations of Truths based on the utility of those beliefs. Truth is a property of statements. Reality as a whole has neither truth nor falsehood. The utility of a belief has no fixed relation to its truth. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2005, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/164 "2005-08-03T21:49:57Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > **Quote (tim314): You misunderstood me. I’m not saying your claim is unscientific, I’m saying the non-falsifiability of the claim “The universe has a purpose” (which you pointed out) makes the “the universe has a purpose” an unscientific claim. I think we’re agreeing with each other here. However, just because a claim isn’t scientific doesn’t mean it’s illogical to believe it to be true.** > > No, but if a belief involves something which is prima facie impossible (i.e. something which does not conform to the physical laws of the universe) AND if it involves a belief in something for which there cannot be shown any necessity, then it is illogical to prefer such a hypothesis to anything less problematic and superfluous. Ockham’s Razor comes into play here. As long as the universe can be explained without magic, it is an unnecessary multiplication of entia to hypothesize it. > > \*\*Quote: I thought your contention was that people who believe in God are being illogical. Was I misunderstanding? \*\* > > I’m saying it’s a conclusion which is not arrived at by logic, which is logically unnecessary to explain the universe and which violates Ockham’s Razor. It is not a conclusion from reason or a result of a logical chain, it’s just an arbitrary hypothesis which is believed for emotional reasons rather than logically necessary reasons. > > **Quote: I’d be genuinely interested to see what that argument is.** > > I would argue that human beings are social, culture-bearing animals who have evolved to survive not as individuals but as communities. Certain kinds of behavior (murder, theft, rape, etc.) destabalize the community and threaten its survival as a whole. Moral codes within human communities promote the health of the community and the survival of that population as a whole. Behavior that unnecessarily threatens the survival of the community is therefore “wrong,” and all such behavior is forbidden and severely sanctioned by the community. That’s it. It’s evolution. Culture (which includes moral codes) is an evolutionary adaptation which protects the stability of individual human communities and increases the chances that offspring will survive long enough to reproduce. > > **Quote: Many people believe justice has real existence indpendent of human opinion – that certain outcomes are inherently more just than others, and not merely because we say so. I guess you’re in the group that doesn’t believe that.** > No I don’t. I don’t see how justice can have any meaning at all outside of human thought. > > **Quote: But at any rate, even if justice is just a product of beings who are governed by physical laws, justice itself isn’t governed by physical laws. There is no law of physics that applies directly to justice.** > If human thought is governed by physical laws (and it is…“thinking” is just a lot of complex, chemical reactions) then the products of thought are products of physical laws. Physical laws made humans evolve and makes them think. Our consciousness is completely dependant on chemistry. > > **Quote: > Things made of matter and/or which carry energy are material things. Things like concepts and ideas (for example) are not.Well, in the example of an idea, its informational content distinguishes it from nothing. An idea is non-material. You could say it’s a set of neurons firing in my head, but a different set of neurons might fire in your head when you think that idea. And yet, it’s the same idea. The physical world just contains representations of it. Another representation would be writing on a page that states the idea. Again, a totally different physical representation of the exact same idea. So the idea itself is not a material thing.** > > You say that an idea has 'infomational content," but I would argue that an idea consists only of information and nothing else. It’s a bit of acquired knowledge or belief which can be communicated to others. At no time does an idea have any existence independent of human thought. Writing on a page has no meaning until it is interpreted by a thinker. The idea does not exist in the writing any more than musical notation is music. The writing is only a medium to transfer information. > > **Quote: My point is that if a wizard is “a material being who interacts with the world in ways that don’t conform to physical laws”, then it’s not sensible to believe in wizards. I’m agreeing with you with regard to wizards. However, I’m saying it’s different for God, because God is "an immaterial being who interacts with the world in ways that don’t conform to physical laws."** > > And I’m saying that “immateriality” is the same as non-existence. It is not possible to have non-material interaction with matter. > > **Quote: I’m saying no material being could bend the whole world to his will through physical forces alone.** > > Christians believe that Jesus was a material being who did just that. If we’re going to hypothesize magical powers, why put a limit on them? > > **Quote: For one thing, he couldn’t instantaneously affect distant objects, since those forces could only propagate from his position at the speed of light.** > > Not if he’s Jesus. > > See, that’s what I’m saying, if we’re going to abandon physical laws, then we don’t need to bind ourselves to such technicalities as the speed of light. > > \*\*Quote: Let’s say I take out a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. Then I draw a circle to the left of the line and a circle to the right. Now, every object on the plane obeys certain geometric laws, one of them being that it can’t touch both circles without touching the line. But I, as an object not on the plane, can easily break that law. In this example I’m external to the paper, I’m interacting with the objects on the paper, and I’m doing so in a way that violates the rules which hold for objects on the paper. Replace “I” with “God” and “paper” with “universe,” and I don’t see any reason why that sentence couldn’t still be true. \*\* > But the paper isn’t really a plane. That may sound like an obtuse objection but it isn’t. You are not interacting with a two dimensional paradigm, nor can you. You are a three dimensional being interacting with a thtree dimensional object. As long as you are truly “outside” of a plane, you can never interact with it. > > \*\*Quote: I’m not arguing that God can do “magic”, I’m saying there’s no compelling reason to think that he can’t. \*\* > > The ability to do magic is built into the definition of “God.” A God that can’t do magic isn’t God. The question is whether there is any compelling reason to believe that the universe requires this magical being to exist or whether there is any evidence that he has ever magically interacted with the universe since its beginning. So far, the answer to both of those questions is no. > > \*\*Quote: I don’t find “God can’t do magic because material entities existing in the universe can’t do magic” to be a compelling argument, for the reasons I gave above. \*\* > > And entities “outside” of the universe cannot interact with it. Unfortunately I don’t have time to respond point by point. However, your overall argument seems to be as follows: (1) Belief in God is not arrived at by logic. (2) So far as we know, the universe can be fully explained without assuming the existence of God. (3) There is no evidence that anything could possibly have the properties of God, and in fact, for something to have those properties would violate the laws of physics (4) Belief in God violates Ockham’s razor. For these reasons, you conclude that belief in God is illogical. (Or at least, you seem to conclude that non-belief in God is _more_ logical. If all you’re saying is that logic doesn’t _compel_ one to believe in God, then I agree.) But I would respond to these points as follows: (1) I’d say that deductive logic can neither lead you to belief in God nor disbelief in God. Neither conclusion is arrived at by deductive logic. You could argue that your conclusion is arrived at by _inductive logic_, but I’d argue that that induction isn’t valid in this case. (see below) (2) For the most part, I’ll concede this point. I’m personally not convinced that my having consciousness (as opposed to merely the appearance of consciousness) can be fully explained without at least assuming that _something_ exists beyond the physical world. One could argue that consciousness is an illusion, but if so, who is experiencing the illusion? However, this is a secondary argument not essential to my overall point. (3) There is no evidence that something could have the proposed properties of God, but the only evidence that it couldn’t is inductive evidence. E.g., of all the things we ever obeserved, none had the properties of God. Of all the things we ever observed, they all obeyed the laws of physics, whereas God couldn’t be constrained by physics. Etc. Again, I’d argue that that that’s not a valid induction, for the reasons given below. (4) If I concede point 2 (which for the most part I do), then I must also concede that belief in God violates Ockham’s razor. However, Ockham’s razor is also an inductive conclusion. We believe that the simplest explanation is usually correct, because in our experience this is generally true. So in essence the argument that non-belief in God is more logical than belief in God rests on the assumption that we can use inductive reasoning to draw conclusions about whether or not God exists. I would say that this assumption is false. Our ability to form valid inductive inferences about something is dependent on that thing belonging to a set of objects for which we have knowledge about a representative subset. I can say “the sun will rise tomorrow” based on the assumption that tomorrow is part of the set of all days, and that the previous days I’ve observed were representative of that set. However, I can’t inductively conclude that “all the life in the universe is located on this planet” based on the fact that all the life I ever observed is on this planet. You can’t assume life on Earth is representative of life in the universe with regard to its location. To do so _presupposes_ that all life in the universe is located on Earth. Likewise, you can’t use induction to conclude that nothing outside the physical universe exists, because to do so assumes that things in the physical universe are representative of all things with regard to whether or not they’re in the physical universe. In other words, it presupposes that nothing outside the physical universe exists.) (Aside: I’m not sure if I’m using the word “valid” in the technically correct sense. I know a precise technical meaning for the term when it comes to deductive arguements, but I don’t know if such a precise meaning exists with _inductive_ arguments. At any rate, regardless of whether or not I’ve made the correct choice of words, hopefully my meaning is clear by the examples in the above paragraph.) On a mostly unrelated note, you claim not to believe that ideas have any physical reality beyond their existence as a physical state of the human brain. I assume the extends to mathematical concepts. But numbers are a mathematical concept – the idea of something called “seven” that can be represented by seven apples, seven hats, etc. is an idea that exists in the human mind. Yet surely even if every human on Earth dropped dead, there would still be an intrinsic similarity between a group of seven apples and a group of seven hats. And surely, even if everyone forgot the meaning of the mathematical operation “plus”, you could still combine something that met the formerly existing human-defined definition of “one hat” to something that met the formerly existing human-defined category of “six hats”, you’d get something belonging to the formerly existing human-defined category of “seven hats”. Concepts like the concept of “one plus six equals seven” don’t cease to give a meaningful description of the physical world just because there no longer exist people who can articulate those concepts, or whose brains contain a physical configuration corresponding to that concept. it’s an idea with an intrinsic, representation-independent meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2005, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/165 "2005-08-04T00:27:09Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Measure, > > Yeah … Gotta admit I don’t get your criteria. Blockbusters I understand, but why the bit on consciousness being a function of organization of the system rather than of what is being organized? How does that set up God for you? Admittedly, my framework is mostly directed at the empirical agnostic/ atheist divide, rather than the EA/theist divider. Underlying assumption: if you care about the truth-value of a given proposition (e.g God exists) and you believe that current knowledge is inadequate to form a decent conclusion, the proper stance is to withhold judgement. Here, I describe God as a nonhuman consciousness that exerts influence on the world in the past, present and/or future. This is a minimalist description I grant you; it arguably covers my neighbor’s pet. The point: until I get a handle on what consciousness is, I can’t adequately address the God question. ## I’m willing to hypothesize that if God exists, he likes automation and isn’t too keen on direct and obvious material intervention, but that’s another matter. A system-type model of consciousness would not necessarily prove the existance of God; it would merely enable me to think about the question. Further research (I claim) could plausibly provide evidence for God or not. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2005, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/166 "2005-08-04T00:36:24Z")
> [@Othersider](#): > > Hey, I understand where you’re coming from. But why do people jump on a theist when he lashes out at those that criticize him, citing a cliché like “turn the other cheek” or “being a good Christian” or something else that applies to us but not to them? It’s crap, that’s what it is. > > And I’m not attacking you here, I promise - but why did you assume I’m a Christian? I’m good: it was mostly a wisecrack. I don’t think the cliche citation is crap though. Xtian beliefs are somewhat demanding: that’s what makes them meaningful. Loving your enemy can be a challenge. (In this case though, nobody was calling the theists, “assholes, etc”, so my admonition (if that’s what it was) was a general one, applying to all camps.) Oh, and I suspected that I might get tripped up by assuming that you had a Christian background. Point yours, (whether or not you are indeed Xtian). Regards, M4M ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2005, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/167 "2005-08-04T00:54:44Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > On a mostly unrelated note, you claim not to believe that ideas have any physical reality beyond their existence as a physical state of the human brain. I assume the extends to mathematical concepts. But numbers are a mathematical concept – the idea of something called “seven” that can be represented by seven apples, seven hats, etc. is an idea that exists in the human mind. Yet surely even if every human on Earth dropped dead, there would still be an intrinsic similarity between a group of seven apples and a group of seven hats. … > > Concepts like …“one plus six equals seven” don’t cease to give a meaningful description of the physical world just because there no longer exist people who can articulate those concepts… [Roger Penrose](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose), in [The Road to Reality : A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679454438/qid=1123116647/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-7543326-8849637?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) characterizes mathematical reality as a “Platonic Mathematical World”, existing separate from (but linked to) the Physical World and Mental World. The existence of the Platonic Mathematical World poses a challenge to my working materialist paradigm. Oh well. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2005, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/168 "2005-08-04T01:03:22Z")
Spontaneous, worldwide comprehension of an infinite existence. ---
**Author:** ![Othersider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/cab0a1/32.png) [@Othersider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Othersider)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2005, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/169 "2005-08-04T01:10:06Z")
> [@Measure for Measure](#): > > I don’t think the cliche citation is crap though. Xtian beliefs are somewhat demanding: that’s what makes them meaningful. Loving your enemy can be a challenge. Indeed it can. But I try not to have enemies. But Christians are as human as anyone else, so I don’t think they should be held to a “higher standard” or whatever. > [@Measure for Measure](#): > > Oh, and I suspected that I might get tripped up by assuming that you had a Christian background. Point yours, (whether or not you are indeed Xtian). I sort of am. Point yours as well, and truce if there wasn’t one already. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2005, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/170 "2005-08-04T03:07:21Z")
Measure, Interesting. A past thread (distant past) involved assuming that consciousness was a system organization property, perhaps similar to as propsoed by Hofsteader and others since - a function of complex nested self-referential (or “strange”) loops in which an information system included itself as a member of its analytic set. One possible result of such a framework, given the nature of complex nonlinear systems to be self-similar at different scales of analysis (see fractals in Chaos theory) is that society itself may replicate the self-same self-referential organizational principles and that we could very well individually be as-if neurons in a meta-consciousness operating at a societal level, functioning at a scale and time course beyond our individual perception and comprehension. Would this count as God? ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2005, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/171 "2005-08-04T04:57:51Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Measure, > > One possible result of such a framework… is that society itself may replicate the self-same self-referential organizational principles and that we could very well individually be as-if neurons in a meta-consciousness operating at a societal level, functioning at a scale and time course beyond our individual perception and comprehension. I’ve imagined something like that. Neural structures may also exist on the astronomical level. ------ Would this count as God? Plausibly yes (and plausibly no). If the super-consciousness acted in ways that were observable and salient for the smaller consciousnesses (eg you and I), then perhaps the super-consciousness would have God-like characteristics. Or it might lack free will, in which case it might be compared to a huge radio or phonograph, as it were. (Or _we_ might lack free will and the super-consciousness is the puppet master. etc. etc.) For the moment, we are left with speculation. Perhaps I could tackle this problem in my next lifetime. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2005, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/172 "2005-08-04T05:27:24Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > society itself may replicate the self-same self-referential organizational principles and that we could very well individually be as-if neurons in a meta-consciousness operating at a societal level, functioning at a scale and time course beyond our individual perception and comprehension. > > Would this count as God? This God would be a product of physical laws, rather than the other way around. Besides, this definition just gets into an infinite regress: all the organelles give rise to neuronal consciousness, which give rise to organic consciousness which give rise to “meta-consciousness” and then whatever gestalt identity is formed by the aggregate of meta-consciousnesses and so on. If you’re redefining the relationship, though, such that God subdivides itself into meta-consciousnesses, which subdivide into organic consciousnesses…etc, then you are close to the Hindu framework. Typically free will exists at a singular level in the hierarchy (does it make sense for neurons and the brain to both have “free will”?). It’s weird calling such a framework ‘theistic’. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2005, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/173 "2005-08-04T13:03:24Z")
Well, we get back to defining what individuals mean by “god” don’t we? To me the concept of a greater consciousness in the universe with its own goals that are beyond my understanding or comprehension and the concept that my actions and everyone elses actions may be serving those goals in ways that I cannot understand, seems pretty much a theistic concept. Free will? In short if it is an illusion it is a necessary one. Neurons make decisions of sorts: they integrate a variety of inputs and process them in fairly complex ways and then decide to fire or not and at what rate or maybe even to retrograde transmit in some circumstances. All those neurons acting together organized in some particular sort of system gives rise to my consciousness (unless you are a believer in the ghost in the machine). As an individual I am presented with inputs and process them in complex ways and produce an output to other individuals thereby altering the state of the system as a whole in subltle ways. I may (or may not) be acting with individual free will and yet still serving the processing needs of a greater information processing system with a consciousness and free will of its own. No puppet master required any more than I direct the actions of individual neurons in my brain. Need the components of such an information processing system be biological or could information be organized as Measure suggests, on a cosmological scale, and thereby be part of the fabric of spacetime itself? Certainly some out-there physicists propose that matter is an illusion of the essence of the universe which is information itself. In such a case the great consciousness and the universe have both always been as much as time has existed itself. I don’t know, but I do wonder if any of these questions are tractable. Are there ways to falsify these sorts of hypotheses or are they forever relegated to nonevidentiary questions of faith? ---
**Author:** ![Demujin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e79b87/32.png) [@Demujin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Demujin)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2005, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/174 "2005-08-04T20:42:01Z")
> [@II Gyan II](#): > > Where does Truth fit in? Truth is not the finally product we seek, as Bertrand Russell said (at some point), but rather Certainty. Intractrable questions are often so because the tools or methods used to ‘answer’ them are inappropriate or the question itself is inappropriately posed. The old ‘Can God make a rock so heavy He can’t lift it’, for example, isn’t a question about God, but about logic (or rather nonsense posing as logic). Aristolean or traditional logic is only going to take you so far when dealing with transcendental questions before it gets violated (ala Godel). I believe (in that I haven’t the means to prove it) that at best logic can be the finger pointing at the moon, so to speak, when such questions are involved. As an example, I would follow Spinoza when he asserts that things are real in proportion to the attributes they share with God. Additionally, if we posit God as the ground of all being, to assert that God must exist or not exist as mutually exclusive choices is to miss the ‘essential’ point that God is not subject to the principle of excluded middles. Reality or existence derives from God, and as such renders His existence moot. If we follow the assertions of Christian (and other) theologians that God has 5 essential attributes of atemporality, aspatiality, omnipotence, omniscience and all beneficient (the last I feel is an ad hoc feel-goodism - I don’t undertand it’s necessity) you are going to end up with an entity that is beyond logical limits. For the materialist crowd (e.g. scientists), the atemporality and aspatiality alone puts God’s existence out of consideration as there is nothing to measure. For the theologians however this is essential for God is Uncreate (lack of tense intentional) in His nature. I find this symmetry of Uncreate-Creation satisfying, whether it is True or not, I don’t know - nor is it important that it be true or certain - only that it is satisfying. Cheers, Steve ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2005, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/175 "2005-08-04T21:52:27Z")
> [@Demujin](#): > > God is not subject to the principle of excluded middles. Reality or existence derives from God, and as such renders His existence moot. How did you reason that out? :dubious: > [@](#): > > If we follow the assertions of Christian (and other) theologians that God has 5 essential attributes of atemporality, aspatiality, omnipotence, omniscience and all beneficient (the last I feel is an ad hoc feel-goodism - I don’t undertand it’s necessity) you are going to end up with an entity that is beyond logical limits. But the basis to posit these attributes is logic. Why must God be omnipotent, in order to be God? If they are not a result of logical contemplation, then they’re all “feel-goodisms”, unless you’re claiming “revelation” as the source. > [@DSeid](#): > > To me the concept of a greater consciousness in the universe with its own goals that are beyond my understanding or comprehension and the concept that my actions and everyone elses actions may be serving those goals in ways that I cannot understand, seems pretty much a theistic concept. Agreed, but only in the sense that your description thematically parallels a theistic deity in some aspects. > [@](#): > > Neurons make decisions of sorts: they integrate a variety of inputs and process them in fairly complex ways and then decide to fire or not and at what rate or maybe even to retrograde transmit in some circumstances. Those anthropocentric verbs are a figure of speech. I haven’t read any neuroscience journal article that literally assigns sentience or free will to any neural substrate. > [@](#): > > I may (or may not) be acting with individual free will and yet still serving the processing needs of a greater information processing system with a consciousness and free will of its own. No puppet master required any more than I direct the actions of individual neurons in my brain. Your saying so, doesn’t make it so. The materialist would say that you are an emergence i.e. you are the product, not the process, and hence not really an actor. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2005, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/176 "2005-08-04T23:03:54Z")
I must be poorly explaining the analogy. No, I do or not ascribe free will to neurons, just complex processing of inputs to result in outputs. And as an information processing unit “I” do the same thing on a different scale. Whether or not I have free will is moot. I can do my thing unaware of any greater purpose served, and a meta-consciousness can chug along emergent from all of us doing that and yet no more controlling our individual actions than I am controlling the actions of individual neurons. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2005, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/177 "2005-08-05T00:33:23Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I don’t know, but I do wonder if any of these questions are tractable. Are there ways to falsify these sorts of hypotheses or are they forever relegated to nonevidentiary questions of faith? Well, forever is a long time. Renaissance medicine lacked (among other things) the germ theory of disease, as well as knowledge of the cell. Lacking these models, there were practical limits to their understanding. Until we have a theory of consciousness, I don’t see how we can discuss God (other than to note the lack of clear and direct evidence for such a being). I withhold judgment. ## (There are also some ontological issues to consider related to the observations on mathematics noted above. I’m _guessing_ that these concerns are currently tractable to others, though not to myself. That is, the problem is capable of being formulated in a meaningful way.) I think we can discuss free will, but a theory of consciousness would be useful here as well. ---
**Author:** ![Demujin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e79b87/32.png) [@Demujin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Demujin)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2005, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/178 "2005-08-05T01:26:09Z")
[QUOTE=II Gyan II] How did you reason that out? :dubious: To be honest, I didn’t, Spinoza did (he was pretty good at it). I only accepted it as making sense. His postulates didn’t sit so well with the fellows of his congregation (synagogue, I believe) and he was excommunicated for pantheism (although I would further qualify or distinguish it as panentheism - a distinction I’m not sure they had). And as usually happens when one can no longer answer criticisms, there were faults found in his thesis by those using further developments in the theory of reason. In his time, however, he was without parallel. > [@II Gyan II](#): > > But the basis to posit these attributes is logic. Why must God be omnipotent, in order to be God? If they are not a result of logical contemplation, then they’re all “feel-goodisms”, unless you’re claiming “revelation” as the source. No, I don’t claim revelation. Nor am I claiming that it is a logical necessity for God to be omnipotent, I was using a particular theological argument as an example of how an inquiry can become extra-logical and that there are limits to logic (as explained in meta-logics). Why those particular assertions are used by theologians is outside the scope of the question at hand - namely what would it take (to your satisfaction) to produce a belief in God. Those who assert such a possibility, nearly to the person, cite an extra-logical event. Suits me - as I believe that to be a necessity towards understanding the nature of God (as beyond logic). Spinoza’s assertions are not to be taken as proofs of God’s existence – given the ‘rules’ of logic that would be question begging. But by inverting the metaphysical inquiry - the question of God’s existence disappears in a sensible manner. Since logicians of most stripes detest infinite regress, they commonly accept some premises as axiomatic. Some of them, like Euclid’s fifth postulate, turn out to be less than iron-clad. Some logics have paradoxes, also - Liar’s paradox, Russell’s paradox of the class of all classes, Zeno’s paradoxes of motion, etc… Some of them get solved, usually by meta-logical changes or new logical developments - such as Newton’s instantaneous rates of change. The only point I was really trying to make is that insisting on a logical explanation of God’s existence is/maybe… well illogical. If one assumes there is a ground of being (some call this God), then of necessity any logical system would be inadequate to describe/explain that ground of being. Pragmatically there isn’t logical explanation for a mathematical point. Is it real – who cares as long as it works? Is quantum mechanics ‘real’? As long as it works, it is real enough. When the whole concept of reality is dependent on something other - you’re gonna have difficulties. If in the final analysis Reality is of a reflexive nature (Thou art that, for example) then you’re sorta stuck with a panentheistic view, but only definitionally - you can always choose a different approach. What makes logic the final arbiter anyway? That it creates consistant systems? What if (and I’m only partially tongue in cheek here) Reality isn’t consistent? Damn. Thanks for the questions. Cheers, Steve ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2005, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/179 "2005-08-05T04:42:00Z")
> [@Demujin](#): > > I was using a particular theological argument as an example of how an inquiry can become extra-logical and that there are limits to logic (as explained in meta-logics). How are these limits derived? > [@](#): > > Suits me - as I believe that to be a necessity towards understanding the nature of God (as beyond logic). So, it’s not established that God is beyond logic, but that you believe so. > [@](#): > > But by inverting the metaphysical inquiry - the question of God’s existence disappears in a sensible manner. Elaborate this. Are you saying that, by assuming God exists and then contemplating its properties, the question of existence is moot? > [@](#): > > The only point I was really trying to make is that insisting on a logical explanation of God’s existence is/maybe… well illogical. Insistence may be illogical, but the boundaries of logic haven’t been fixed. In the last few decades, paraconsistent logics have appeared where contradictions are acceptable. > [@](#): > > If one assumes there is a ground of being (some call this God), then of necessity any logical system would be inadequate to describe/explain that ground of being. This necessity isn’t clear, at all. How? > [@](#): > > What makes logic the final arbiter anyway? Logic is the embodiment of the analysis of patterns of experience. It’s not an _a priori_ platonic tool selected at random. Whatever is parsimonious should be considered as ‘logic’. ---
**Author:** ![lhovis73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecd19e/32.png) [@lhovis73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lhovis73)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2005, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572/180 "2005-08-05T05:38:03Z")
If this is not a funny way to put it, I think my atheism would be challenged if I did not live in a world filled with human beings whose problems magically go away when they invent gods for themselves. E.g. the problem of death (with God, no problem at all, without God, big damn problem…) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agnostics-what-would-make-you-believe-in-god/314572.md?page=10)