Well the first thing to note is how these questions have been pushed back and back over time. So phenomena that were once held up as proof of God…we have models for how they come about and how they operate entirely naturally now. So such “proofs” are quietly forgotten and the proof becomes whatever we can’t explain right now.
This is called “god of the gaps”.
But, more fundamentally, we have the issue of why anything exists at all.
Now, I’m of the opinion that that is a “real” unknown; I think it’s meaningful to say we don’t know, and I think the statement “The universe just does exist” is not meaningful, though it is definitely an area where opinions differ.
However, it’s hard to see how a god helps with this fundamental question, since a god is still a “thing” that we need to explain the existence of.
So the god “hypothesis” has no explanatory power here. You have to ask yourself why you need or want to conceive of a god existing. And I would say it is a human cognitive bias; a need to anthropomorphize things and put a human face on anything we don’t understand.
We’re not disagreeing. I’m not suggesting that we should accept metaphysical claims based on their inherent lack of evidence - that would be idiotic. I’m saying that the lack of evidence tells us nothing, one way or the others, about their validity and is therefore not a useful criterion against which to assess them. From which two conclusions flow: first, we need to find other criteria against which to assess metaphysical claims and, secondly, rejecting them on the grounds that they are unevidenced is irrational.
“X is morally right/morally good” is a metaphysical claim. It’s a claim about an intangible, unobservable concept - “good”.
“God made the universe like a carpenter makes a chair” is not a metaphysical claim, even if you qualify it by saying that God is a really, really good carpenter who doesn’t need any raw materials or tools. But that is not the claim that deists make. The deist claim, when properly engaged with, is more like this; God is the fundamental ground for the existence of all things. Without god, no existence is possible.
Vague? Hard to get your mind around it? Hard to see the relevance to your own life? Yes. These are common criticisms of deism. But, metaphysical? Yes, certainly. In spades.
Likewise, the claim that good exists, and therefore beating your children can meaningfully be classed as bad, is a metaphysical claim. Can you see good? Touch it? Measure it? Test for it in any empirical way? No, you can’t. It’s a metaphysical notion. If you want to evaluate the claim that beating your children is bad, you’re going to have to do so on grounds which, fundamentally, are not evidence-based. And the same goes for the deist claim.
It’s not rational at all if you accept that, even if the claim were true, there would still be no evidence. I’m not saying that you have to accept the claim. I’m saying that if you want to take a position on it at all, and if you want that position to be rationally defensible and respectable, it can’t be a position which infers from the absence of evidence.
Speaking of category error, your last few posts have been nothing but, UDS.
You are attempting to assert an equivalence that just doesn’t exist.
Moral claims are not at all unevidenced. Behaviours have observable consequences, and we assign words like “good” to certain behaviours and consequences and “bad” to others. These things have evidence surrounding them all over the place.
There is no equivalence between that and a bald postulation of a deity, based on nothing.
This is an old and tired canard, absence of evidence is a kind of evidence.
There is no evidence of life on the moon, so we naturally conclude that life on the moon doesn’t exist. We don’t get all agnostic and hand-wavy about it.
An existing thing that necessarily leaves no evidence is oxymoronic, you can call it metaphysics if you want, but your metaphysics just opens the door to an infinite universe of bizarro entities that no reasonable person would believe in.
Not the same at all. If there was life on the moon, we’d definitely expect to find evidence of it, and the absence of evidence is telling.
But if “God is the fundamental ground for the existence of all things”, what evidence would you expect to find of that?
Why? Are you assuming that only empirically observable things can exist? Is there any evidence for that? Could there even be any evidence for that? And, if there is no evidence for that, why is it OK for you to believe it?
It only “opens the door” if you insist that empirically observable evidence is the only acceptable criterion by which we can assess and evaluate claims. Which you can only do if you assume that there can be no realities which are not empirically observable. Which is kind of circular.
Here in the real world we have more than one epistemology available to us, and we use different epistemologies to evaluate different claims, according to the nature of the claim. You could try and demonstrate Pythagoras’ theorem by measuring lots and lots of right-angled triangular structures and showing that, within the tolerance of their construction and the precision of your measuring technology, the square of the hypotenuse was generally close enough to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. The general view, however, is that methods which do not rely at all on empirically observable evidence produce a more respectable proof.
I’m not suggesting that deist propositions are analogous to the propositions of Euclidean geometry, except to this extent; neither of them are propositions about empirically observable entities, and hence credible and respectable - and rational - methods of evaluating them will ultimately not rely on empirically observable evidence.
I am not “opening the door” to all kinds of bizarro metaphysical claims. I have already said that there may be rational grounds for rejecting metaphysical claims. I’m just saying that examination of empirically observable evidence is not one of them. If anybody is opening the door to the credulous acceptance of bizarre metaphysical propositions, it is those who deny that they can be meaningfully evaluated against any other criteria.
Let A be a thing that exists but is not empirically observable. And let B be a thing identical to A in all respects except that B does not exist.
If I believe A exists is a rational statement, then so is I believe B exists.
So, if some non-empirically-observable things exist we must accept that it is rational to believe in non-existing things too.
(I would love to hear you explain what the difference is between thing A and thing B above.)
If, on the other hand you merely wish that I concede that despite the absence of evidence, that a non-empirically-observable thing *might *exist, then I will do so, with the same grudging weariness that I would concede to some sophomoric stoner that, “Hey dude, we might just be brains in a jar”.
But Euclidean geometry is verifiable in the real world (at least to the extent that tolerances will allow (and notwithstanding that modern views lead us to believe that the universe is non-Euclidean (and that in turn has been verified to the extent that tolerances will allow))). On the other hand, for your metaphysical daemon there is no verifying evidence – indeed according to your view it is *necessarily *absent.
I’m going to stop you there. I haven’t asserted that I believe A exists is a rational statement.
It may or may not be; that depends on the reasons for holding the belief. All I have said is that, given that A is not empirically observable, we do not show that belief in A is irrational merely by poiting out that it is not empirically observed.
It may well be. That depends on the reasons for holding the belief. The fact that a belief is held on rational grounds doesn’t mean that it is necessarily correct. Conversely the fact that a belief turns out to be incorrect doesn’t mean that those who formerly believed it behaved irrationally in doing so.
You have already told us the difference. Thing A exists and thing B does not.
No, I wish slightly more than that. I wish you to concede not only that it might exist, but also that if we want to say any more than that we need to employ a relevant epistemology, i.e. not one which is a priori irrelevant to the question because it only examines empirically observable evidence. And if we want to condemn the proposition that it exists as “irrational” we risk ridicule if we advance a wholly irrational basis for doing so.
Sure. As I said, deist propositions are not geometric propositions, and the epistemology that is apt for one of them is not necessarily apt for the other. They are similar only in that it is not rational to rely on the scientific method to evaluate them.
Yes, it is pertinent to note that things which approximate to the platonic ideal of a right-angled triangle have pretty much the characteristics that Pythogoras would lead us to expect, but we never offer this as proof. Equally, we can note that if the deist claim is true, we would expect to observe that things do exist, and indeed that is what we observe. But we don’t offer this as proof either, because it isn’t. The most we can say is that the observable evidence doesn’t contradict (a) Pythagoras or (b) Deism. But if we want to say any more, we need to look elsewhere.
In short, the relevance of euclidean geometry to the argument is that it demonstrates that there can be meaningful claims about non-empirically observable things which can be rationally evaluated and accepted or rejected without recourse to empirical evidence. Hence a general proposition that belief in unevidenced propositions is irrational is plainly false. The question raised in the OP is whether deism is irrational; the onus on those who say it is to show that it is; they cannot show that merely by pointing out that it is not validated by empirically observable evidence; and deism is by no means the only set of propositions of which all this is true.
My contribution to this thread before these asides was to suggest that “explanatory power” was a key criterion.
If someone wishes to believe in something that explains nothing and for which there is no empirical evidence then I won’t be calling that rational.
A further aside:
I think you may have misunderstood the role of geometry. It is certainly true that a set of axioms can lead to a rich (and even useful) universe of theorems. But they are not usually arbitrary axioms; certainly those of Euclidean geometry were founded in the observable measurable world, and it would have been a *sine qua non *that the theorems that followed corresponded to observable and measurable phenomena.
So, we might posit the axioms:
Invisible Pink Unicorns exist
They are all powerful and loving
They eat pixies
…
etc.
I would contend that if :
a) there are no a priori reasons to accept these axioms
and
b) that the consequential theorems make no measurable or testable predictions in the real world then subscription to the IPU newsletter can only be for entertainment purposes only.
Bolding mine. That’s quite the exclusion there, my friend, do you agree that if a belief explains something, then it is fully rational? A rain dance explains why it rains, as does Navier-Stokes equation. Is faith in the truth of either completely rational as they both explain why it rains?
I will tend to describe myself simply as a theist, and when relevant as a Christian, but not as religious. That said, I believe that, it general, the idea of “explanatory power” is a red herring when it comes to the nature of God that, unfortunately, both theists and atheists get stuck in. My view would tend to be that science and religion/philosophy are orthogonal in purpose, and that the idea of “explanatory power” is much more a scientific concept than a religious one. Sure, there are religions and belief systems that make such assertions, but they are indeed nothing more than assertions.
So, to this end, let’s take an analogy of a parent and a child. The child grows to an age where he starts asking questions, and inevitably, one of those questions is “where did I come from?” Certainly, there is a solid scientific explanation for this, going back through child development, the biology involved in birthing and conception, geneology, evolution, etc. That’s all great, and it’s a factual and rational response to the question.
But there’s the other aspect of that question of why? There isn’t a good scientific answer to that question and, really, only the parents can answer that question. Maybe the parents really wanted a child. Maybe the child was a pleasant surprise. Maybe the child was an accident. There’s a huge number of possibilities involved in the circumstances that resulted in the conception of that child, and it carries through into the relationships between the parents and children and how they interact. As such, even if the scientific answer is more or less identical for each child, this aspect still has a huge impact on the life of that child.
To this end, I don’t posit the existence of God to explain how the universe got here, I posit the existence of God to explain purpose for our existence. Science does a pretty damn good job of explaining how and, chances are, those parts that we don’t understand yet, we either will eventually or are just plain incapable of understanding, at least as we exist now. A god of the gaps is exactly that, a limited and continually weaker and weaker god, to the point of impotence.
That said, the nature of God comes up a lot as well, but ultimately, I don’t think it really matters either. That is, maybe God really is some kind of spiritual being, as many religious folk assert. Maybe the universe itself is conscious. Maybe he’s just a being analogous to us in some older universe. Or maybe everything is thoroughly random. Much like with science, we only have available to us the results of creation, what we see, whether it’s the result of a higher consciousness or utter randomness. So if it is the former, we can potentially come to understand that higher consciousness to some degree by evaluating creation. And if it’s the latter, even if it is pure randomness, there are still anomalies in randomness that are meaningful to have some understanding of. That is, even if we’re here purely by pure luck, that we’re here is significant, at least to us, and worth analyzing, even if it’s just us assigning purpose to our own existence and not attempting to read the mind of God.
The analogy I like to use to this end is to imagine looking at a work of art. Science can explain what the colors are, tell us what type of paint and what surface and maybe what style it is. Hell, maybe we do some kind of cluster analysis and tell us what the subject matter is, that it’s maybe a portrait or a landscape or abstract, it might even be able to tell us what a typical person might see and how they might react, but scientific analysis is about the worst way to look at art. But if I look at it as art, then I can tell you what it means to me, how it affects me intellectually, emotionally, or whatever. I can tell you the story that it communicates to me. I may even make assertions about what the artist was thinking or trying to convey in creating the painting. Maybe I can look at the technique and make an assertion about the skill of the artist himself.
So what if the artist is actually some world renowned painter? If I thought it looked amateur before should I now revise my opinion of it? What if it’s a young inexperienced painter? Should I like it less now? Maybe the painting was generated by literally throwing paint at the canvas or even a randomly generated by a computer? If it moved me before should it move me less when I find out that there is no actual consciousness behind the design of the painting? In this regard, we still refer to the painter or the artist, regardless of the true identity, or perhaps non-existence of the person that painted it. And regardless of whether it was created with intention or not, I am still moved, or in fact not moved, by what I’m presented with. So, if I can do this with a painting, how is analyzing creation and the creator so much different?
So, coming back to the OP. Even as a theist myself, I would argue that it is, in fact, irrational to posit the existence of God as an explanation to how we got here or, even if we assume he exists, what is nature may be. OTOH, I would also argue that it is rational to at least attempt to understand the purpose and nature of our existence, even if it actually is true that it’s all random and pointless, because from our perspective and the available evidence, we can’t actually make any scientifically examinable assertions about the existence or non-existence of God, yet the fact remains that we are here, and our existence is of the utmost importance to us.
I seem to have misstated my position. If P = explains nothing, then P has no relevance to the human condition, where we have beliefs to explain something.
My question is that if a belief explains something, is it rational? I set the Navier-Stokes equation as an example, something that must be believed as it has not been mathematically proven to be true.
Blaster Master, I do not wish to be glib because you obviously took time to compose and present your thoughts.
The paragraphs on regarding a painting (and the inconsequence of its authorship when it comes to our appreciation of it) would seem to indicate that even if a deity created the universe we can still appreciate its beauty or complexity or significance ignorant of that information.
If there is empirical evidence for something then that alone could be enough to make belief in it rational. I believe in gravity for instance.
The issue comes about when empirical evidence is necessarily absent. In that case we might still legitimately posit a thing’s existence if it were to explain some otherwise unexplained (or difficult to explain) phenomena.*
There are still a number of conditions to meet. Is the posited explanation elegant? as simple as it could be? unique? And (perhaps most importantly to this discussion), does it explain anything at all or is it just begging the question?
IMHO the deity-explanation for our existence is not elegant, not simple, not unique, and most certainly begs the question.
As for Navier-Stokes, I don’t know enough about it to have a belief with regards to its truth (or otherwise) – it certainly seems to be a useful tool to some. But I’ll help you out, the Goldbach Conjecture is unproven (and unlike Navier Stokes doesn’t have the advantage of being particularly useful), but I believe it’s *probably *true (I have no need to hold an *absolute *belief about it).
“What could explain such and such a phenomenon” looks to me like your typical motivation for most theoretical science, but scientific hypotheses have the advantage that they can be tested and verified (and for the Popperians (of which I count myself) falsified).
Last thing first - being shaped by evolution is the how. There are many other forms we could have taken which would have been equally well-adapted, in fact some more so. They “why” question is why we don’t look like one of these choices, not why we don’t have three arms and a malformed head. Theistic evolution is to validate the “god created man in his own image” passage.
As for the rest, it depends on whether you consider just making stuff up is rational. The multiverse, which I don’t buy particularly, at least comes from the recognition that quantum events are probabilistic. Perhaps imagining deism is rational but acting on it is not.
But there are two parts to the why question. The first is why the parents had any child at all. That usually has an answer - intentional, accident, doctor’s visit, or whatever. But the more relevant question is why was a particular child born, out of all the possibilities. Why did that sperm succeed versus all the others? That is more like the question of why are we here. And there really is no answer to that question.
If God showed up and talked to us, could explain. In the current case, though, “God” can explain anything you want it to explain with equal validity. Why is there happiness? God. Why is there sorrow? God? Why is there good? God. Why is there evil? God. You get the picture.
About the only thing this God does is to make people who are upset about there not being a reason for all this feel better. Which I guess is something, but it’s not much better than sky gods.
Analyzing the world lets us improve our existence. Nothing odd about that.
We’ve evolved to find meaning in patterns. We see a face on the Moon, canals on Mars, and meanings in paintings created by apes. Anyone who has ever done anything artistic has probably had the experience of a reader/viewer find all kinds of meanings in the work you didn’t intend. Sometimes it is subconscious, sometimes it comes from what the viewer brings to the observation.
Science is about the difference between the actual laws of nature (the laws of motion) versus what we perceive as the meaning - astrology, say.